


Marble and Water

by Mntsnflrs



Series: Between Worlds [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Falling In Love, I'm very big on the unspoken longing can you tell, M/M, Melancholy, Mentions of Drowning, Minor Injuries, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, Pining, Witchcraft, again tho no one dies, just the general lonely self loathing kind, minor horror, my boo boo the fool makeup is on for writing something that hurt me again !, not that kind of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mntsnflrs/pseuds/Mntsnflrs
Summary: Taeyong blinks, trying to imprint the man's face into his memory, the minor facets of expression as he blinks water out of his eyes, as drops run down the gentle curve of his cheekbone, down the smooth column of his neck. He tries to imprint into his mind the way the cold eyes are alive, moving, watching him with an intensity that scares him to his core, because gods, how many times has he wished for these eyes to meet his own gaze?How many times has he wished to be looked at too?“I know you,” he repeats, voice almost nothing in the silence of the night. “I’m in love with you.”-This is a sequel/spin off, but can be read alone!





	Marble and Water

**Author's Note:**

> Again guys this is weirdly dark and I didn't know how to tag it so please lmk if you find something you think I should warn people about!  
As always, I hope everyone enjoys! xo

He’s seven years old when he falls in love.

“Taeyong? Taeyong where – _there _you are,” his mother says, voice chiding but full of relief. “I’ve told you to stop wandering off like that, what were you thinking?”

He points to the statue he’s staring at. “Who is that?”

His mother bends down slightly to read the plaque at the bottom. “It’s a marble sculpture of a woodland creature, this says. It’s over a hundred years old, my, it’s lasted well!”

He isn’t interested in the age or the material or the creator, what he cares about is the man in the marble, face serene, pointed up towards the sky as his hands twine around vines. He’s beautiful, the most beautiful thing Taeyong has ever seen. “It’s my birthday soon, right?”

“Yes,” his mother says, immediately cautious. “And?”

“Can you buy me the statue as an early birthday present please?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then her laughter breaks out in beautiful peals that echoes throughout the museum. “Yongie, this is priceless honey! I couldn’t afford something like this if I worked for a thousand years!”

He reddens, feeling stupid, and tries not to pout as he stares at his feet. After a moment his mother’s laughter fades and she kneels down, turning him to face her and stroking a finger down his cheek. “You really like this sculpture that much?”

“I think I’m in love,” he says boldly, though his cheeks are still warm with embarrassment.

His mother’s eyes melt. “Your first love, huh? That’s serious business. I’m sorry honey, but I can’t get you this, but you know if there was any way that I could, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it for you, because you’re my first and last love, my baby. You know that right?”

He nods. “I know. I love you too.”

“If you like, we can come back here on your birthday before your party. What do you think?”

Even as a kid, his eyes were too big, his expression too solemn. He nods and then steps forward to kiss her forehead like he’s seen his dad do a million times. “Thank you very much. I’d like that a lot.”

She stands and takes his hand, and they continue walking, looking at the other sculptures and statues, the paintings and pottery. All of its beautiful, all of its priceless.

He stares blindly at all of it, clinging to his mother like a lifeline, and mourns the statue like his heart is broken, like he left his soul at the feet of the impish marble boy with the pointed nose and cold eyes.

-

He’s eleven years old when he falls in love.

A vaguely annoyed looking kid tugs on his sweater and turns him around, mouth pressed into a thin line as he scrutinizes Taeyong. “It’s your birthday?”

Taeyong balks in the face of such bluntness, and he swallows mutely before he manages to croak out, “Yes?”

“I saw your birthday badge. Happy birthday.”

“Oh...” he trails off. “Thank you.”

The boy shakes his head and messes his neatly parted black hair, more of a tick than a social cue. “Why are you in a museum on your birthday?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong answers honestly. “I just like it here. I come every year.”

“That’s weird.”

“I know.”

“But cool.”

“It-“ he stops. Squints. “It is?”

“Yeah. My parents take me to a meadow every year for my birthday so that I can play with the flowers and make them grow. Do you have an affinity for historical objects or something?”

“I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The kid cocks his head. “I mean, are you here because of your powers?”

“Powers?”

“Don’t play dumb, I could feel your strength from the other side of the building. You stink like fresh air, but tainted by something metallic.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Taeyong says, taking a few steps backwards. “I’m sorry to be rude but I think I need to find my mother.”

The kid reaches out and snags Taeyong’s sweater. “If you really aren’t playing dumb, then you need to know that you’re growing, your power is tangible. It’ll hit you soon, and you need to be prepared. Don’t be scared, okay? My grandma said it’s like being welcomed into bed by a mattress that has missed you as much as you’ve missed it. You need to let yourself fall, you need to trust it. The landing will be soft.”

“Doyoung!” Someone calls. Taeyong looks over to the voice and sees a slender woman, beautiful, with eyes as dark and piercing as the boy who’s still tugging Taeyong’s sleeve. “Doyoung, I’ve told you before to ask people before you start manhandling them!”

Doyoung smiles suddenly, and he doesn’t look so annoyed. He looks like a little bunny with big eyes and a squishy mouth. “Sorry for being rude. I’ll see you around, okay? Don’t worry; I’ll help you when you need it. Happy birthday, stranger!”

“My name is Taeyong,” he says quietly, not quite a whisper.

Doyoung smiles again, even wider than the first. “Happy birthday, Taeyong. I hope your powers are historical so that the statue you stare at can finally stare back.”

Taeyong’s eyes snap back to the forest fae, and like always, he struggles to look away again. Every birthday he returns with his mother, who sits on a nearby bench and reads for an hour and lets her son wander around, circling the statue, murmuring to himself and making notes of the features he missed during the previous visits. This time the list is short. He’s running out of things to miss.

  * Nose tip pointier from the side
  * Little earrings?
  * Long nails (kind of weird)
  * Shirt too big – not his shirt?
  * What colour would his hair be? His eyes? Ask curator during next visit

He stares again, circles again, eyes scanning.

Doyoung’s eyes ring through his head like a sweet bell, and he waits, and waits, and waits. He waits until even his mother has had enough, and then he leaves, unspeakably disappointed when the statue didn’t as much as blink. How he wanted it to stare back at him with the same curiosity, the same adoration.

-

Doyoung was right about his powers, but they took Taeyong by surprise all the same.

He was almost thirteen when it happened; one moment sleeping peacefully, the next screaming into the night as sounds hammered into his skull, deafening him and sending sharp nails of agony into his head.

His sister had heard him first and ran to their parents’ room, panicked, and it had been Taeyong’s dad that arrived first, scooping him up tightly and rocking, stroking his hair and hushing his screams with soothing sounds from his chest. “Sorry Yongie, I’m sorry,” he said quietly as Taeyong’s screaming faded into quieter sobs, as he shoved his face into his dad’s neck and cried like a baby. “It skipped your sister, I never thought to warm you. I’m so sorry sweetheart.”

“Daddy,” he cries, too scared to care that calling his father daddy isn’t cool anymore, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

His dad rocks him, pressing a kiss to his head, and Taeyong feels the slight tremor in his hand as he strokes Taeyong’s back. “It’s a gift, Yongie, a real gift.”

“It _hurts.”_

“I know, I know,” his dad whispers. “I’m sorry, you’ll get used to it, I promise it won’t feel like this for long.”

“What will it feel like?” he asks, slightly mollified.

“If you have power like mine, it’ll feel like... like one of those cup and string sets you made as a little kid with your sister. Do you remember? She’d go into another room and talk to you like you were little spies.”

He nods.

“It feels like that, but on the other end of the line are animals instead. You’ll be able to pick up that cup and hear what they’re saying, if they’re happy or sad or sick or hurt. If you like, you could help them too, but that’s your decision.”

“And it won’t hurt like this?”

His mother comes into the room holding his sister, and they both look at him with dark, terrified eyes.

“No,” his dad says softly. “It won’t hurt like this. But Yongie, things will change. I’m sorry sweetie, but when this happens things always change.”

-

His father had been right, of course.

Things changed.

He went to school after a week at home, once the sounds had quietened to a dull throb he could manage, only to find his friends avoided him.

During lunch he runs up to one of them, asks to play ball, and is given only his back as a reply.

His stomach tenses, but before he draws any conclusions he tries another, a group of girls he sometimes helps with their homework. Three of them turn away, making awkward conversation with one another, not bothering to hide their sly interest when their friend faces Taeyong with her chin raised and says, “Why do you look so weird?”

It takes him by complete surprise. “I... I look weird?”

“You look really weird. You smell weird, too. Like dirt. You look like crap.”

He runs to the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror, but he looks the same in his own eyes. His eyes are still too big, his mouth too flat, his hair too long. He sniffs his clothes, searching for something odd, something not quite right, but he just smells fabric conditioner.

Confused and upset, he runs back outside, but everyone he turns to turns away from him, refusing to meet his eyes. It’s like a miasma had cloaked him in something hideous, something dark and cruel and disgusting that the children can sense, can see festering on his skin and seeping into his bloodstream.

He goes home in tears, walking by himself as he kicks a stone along the sidewalk and wonders if this is going to be the rest of his life.

A bird chirps somewhere to his left, and there’s a reply somewhere to his right.

Wind disturbs his face, and he jolts to a stop when a sparrow lands on the stone he’d been kicking.

Another lands on his shoulder, a third onto the hand that had been wiping at his tears.

Down the line of string, from the paper cup connected to his heart, he hears faint worry, feels the sadness of the birds, the pity they feel looking at his sorrow of his form.

The one on the ground chirps, lifting for a moment only to land on his hair, little claws scraping his scalp as it settles.

For a minute he stands there, immobile, uncomprehending, while the sparrows dance. As they sing, his tears dry, and his sadness begins to lift, until finally he’s laughing, delighted, as they jump across his knuckles and peck gently at the skin of his cheeks.

Once they fly away, the string between them sings with joy. He wonders if it’s worth the price of loneliness, and when he hears crying, walking further down the road, and finds a stray little puppy, malnourished and too weak to stand on its own, he takes it home, and decides the price of this gift is one he’s willing to pay.

He goes back the next day to see if he can find the puppy’s siblings, and finds their den just off the road, the mother having long since abandoned them or died – whatever had happened, the puppies were dying, and they were alone.

Taeyong rang his dad, who came with his car and helped Taeyong bundle all of the puppies into a box of blankets and take them to the nearest non-kill shelter for food and care.

The puppy he’d found the previous day his father lets him keep.

He doesn’t need friends, he doesn’t need to play ball and help girls with their homework if he can have this, if he can help abandoned puppies and find lost cats and mend the wings of hurt birds. It’s a price he’s willing to pay, and as he goes to sleep with the warm puppy against his chest, still unnamed, but happy, healthy, _loved _– Taeyong knows he’d take any kind of pain for this gift.

-

He’s thirteen years old when he falls in love.

Doyoung punches him on the arm, startling him, and laughs at the fear in Taeyong’s face. “Happy birthday, Taeyong, and happy anniversary of meeting me. You smell weird.”

“I know,” he says, “And thanks.”

“You kind of smell like dirt.”

“I know,” Taeyong repeats, stung. His eyes flit back to the statue, but like every other birthday, it doesn’t move.

“It’s not so bad,” Doyoung says, smiling. “I smell like pollen, so sometimes I make people sneeze.” Taeyong laughs at that, however reluctantly, and Doyoung’s smile grows. “You wanna be best friends?”

Taeyong’s too sensible for that kind of commitment. “We need to know each other first.”

“So come over to my house,” Doyoung says, “Now. My brother has already baked you a cake.”

“I don’t know...” he says, kind of uncomfortable.

Doyoung cocks his head. “Give it up, won’t you? Taeil can see the future and he said that I’m gonna be best friends with a guy whose eyeballs are too big for his head. You’re the only person I know that fits that standard, so you should just come and have some birthday cake already.”

“You’re really blunt,” Taeyong says, his cheeks heating up. Best friends? He’s spent the past weeks almost entirely alone if not for his family and his newfound relationship with animals. He could do with a best friend, but the idea scares him.

“Kids don’t like me either,” Doyoung says. “I’m bad with words and being nice at the right time, and I make everyone with hayfever really ill. You don’t have hayfever, do you?”

“No.”

Doyoung brightens. “Then we _have_ to be best friends! Come on, I’ll take you to meet my brother, okay?”

He doesn’t say okay, because he barely has time to breathe before Doyoung is dragging him across the museum towards a tall, handsome young man that has Doyoung’s inquisitive eyes. He smiles when he sees Doyoung, and smiles further when he sees Taeyong.

“Have you made a friend, Doie?”

“A best friend,” Doyoung declares. “Taeil told me so.”

Doyoung’s brother offers Taeyong a warm, callused hand to shake, and Taeyong’s heart jumps into his throat and then does a nosedive to land on the polished floor, rolling to stop at Kim Donghyun’s feet. “Nice to meet the best friend of my little brother. You’re welcome over for cake, if you’d like? And happy birthday, too!”

“Thank you,” Taeyong whispers. “I... I’d love to come over.”

He doesn’t look at the statue on his way out, he doesn’t even consider it. He spends his birthday staring at Donghyun, listening to Doyoung, eating cake and playing with their family cat, an indignant girl that insists her kibble is disgusting despite her constant begging for more food.

He has such a good day that by the evening, when Donghyun had promised Taeyong’s mother to bring him home, he ends up ringing Taeyong’s family and asking on behalf of the boys if Taeyong could spend the night.

He stays in Doyoung’s bed, pressed against the younger boy gingerly, but somehow more comfortable than he’s felt around any of his other friends.

“I’m always on my own,” Doyoung says into the darkness. “The other witches are nice, but they want me to go to parties and stuff and I hate crowds, so I don’t see them very often. The kids at my school are horrible, and none of them like me. They think I’m a nerd and that because they always sneeze near me that I must be diseased or something. It’s so illogical, but when I tried to explain that to them they just laughed at me and called me a nerd again.”

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong whispers. “I think... I’m going to be alone now too.”

Doyoung pokes him in the ribs and makes him giggle. “We can be alone together.”

And in the darkness, Taeyong is thirteen and falls in love for the second time that day. He threads his hand into Doyoung’s and links their fingers. “Yeah. Let’s be alone together.”

-

It sounds nice, but reality is still hard.

They go to different schools which means their time together is confined mostly to weekends. During the week they live separate lives of misery, both mocked and bullied for being different in a way none of the other kids can specify, but can identify and hate the difference all the same.

Taeyong is pushed over and bruises his knees, scraping his hands, and rings Doyoung in tears to tell him about it, only to find out Doyoung is in his own school’s infirmary because he’d said something without thinking and an older boy had punched him in the mouth.

One weekend they’re in the woods together, Doyoung wrapping Taeyong in weeds and laughing at him until a squirrel attacks him in Taeyong’s defence, and the next week they’re both confined to their houses because they were in fights and had been grounded again.

It was a hard way to live, but Taeyong thanked the stars for Doyoung every single night. As annoying as he was, he was Taeyong’s best friend, his teacher and his mocker and his partner in discovery and grief.

-

On Taeyong’s fourteenth birthday, Doyoung takes him to the museum so that they can stare at the statue together.

After a couple of minutes, Doyoung grunts. “I don’t get your obsession with it. It isn’t anything special.”

“I think he’s beautiful.”

“Have you ever seen the Barberini Faun? Now _that _is beauty. If you like... tails and an exposed marble dick, that is.”

It startles Taeyong out of his adoration. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Nothing important. Come visit my grandma with me.”

“But it’s _my_ birthday!”

“Don’t you trust me?”

He pouts. “I guess.”

So he allows himself to be dragged away from the statue for the second year in a row, this time to meet Doyoung’s grandmother, a crazy old lady that throws tulips at Taeyong as soon as she sees him.

“Red tulips for the pretty boy with the bleeding heart and the mouth of Adonis!”

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “Dial it back grandma, he’s already nervous.”

She cocks her head, eyes roaming Taeyong’s face with a terrifying ferocity. “Nervous? No, he’s not nervous. He’s searching, aren’t you, Taeyong? Unlike Doie here, who likes to stay exactly where he is, exactly how he is. You want something, don’t you, but you’re not sure yet what it is. How far will you go to get it? Will you hurt yourself, destroy yourself in your pursuit? I think you would. I think you’d kill yourself for whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Taeyong stares at her, silent in his horror.

She passes him another tulip, still red, but darker than the rest. He’s never seen a tulip more closely resemble blood. “Another tulip for the boy with the bleeding heart. This flower will last you a long time, Taeyong, so don’t lose it. Watch the colour closely. When it darkens you’re in trouble, when it lightens you’ll be free.”

He takes the flower by its delicate stem, touching the waxy petals with reverent fingertips. “Thank you Ma’am,” he murmurs, confused and weirdly emotional. He can’t hear the flowers like Doyoung can, but he can sense this one, this single tulip. There’s no emotions, just a hum, a power.

Doyoung says something to his grandmother, who laughs and pats him on the cheek before patting Taeyong’s too. “Kind boys, both of you. Taeil too, and Johnny, oh you must bring them back soon, Doyoung, I miss them. All five of you, wouldn’t that be nice for Taeyong? Has he met them yet? No, of course he hasn’t, you’re worried he’ll like them more than he likes you and that he’ll leave you on your own again.”

Taeyong looks up at that, at Doyoung, who is flushing a weird shade of purple, eyes on the floor. “Doyoung...” he says, trailing off when he realises he doesn’t know what to say. “I worry you’ll find a better best friend too.”

Doyoung scowls. “It isn’t that! They’re just losers; I don’t want them to embarrass me, that’s all.”

“I saw you puke all over yourself last week because you ate that raw chicken out of spite because of how much you paid for it,” Taeyong reminds him gently, and Doyoung’s grandmother cackles.

“I love him! Doie, bring this one round more often, you hear me? Now come in for some tea and I’ll tell you both about how I met your late grandfather.”

Doyoung groans. “I’ve heard this story so many times.”

“But Taeyong hasn’t, and he wants to hear about how, in my twenties, I chose your grandfather because of the garden he planted for me, don’t you Taeyong?”

“Yes,” he answers, finding only as he replies that he genuinely means it. “I’d love to hear the story.”

And over tea, some biscuits and a little slice of cherry cake, Taeyong finds a second family, a second home.

-

On his sixteenth birthday, he falls in love.

Doyoung kisses him in the evening, during his modest birthday party. They’re out on the balcony of Taeil’s parent’s bedroom, alone, away from the other witches and the noise of the party, and Doyoung grabs his arm, tugs on his wrist, and then kisses him soundly on the lips.

They stay there for a moment, unmoving.

Until Doyong pulls back with a sour expression and wipes his mouth and they both burst into giggles.

“At least we know it doesn’t work,” Taeyong says past his laughter. Doyoung is handsome, growing taller with each year, surpassing him in height and slender beauty, and Taeyong loves him more than anyone else in the world, and he can’t deny that he’d been wondering if this is where they were heading together. He’s kind of disappointed, but he’d rather know for sure. He’s glad, in a way, that nothing has to change between them.

“Sorry,” Doyoung mutters, scrubbing at his lips. “But that felt _gross_. Like kissing my aunt or something.”

“It felt like kissing my grandpa.”

“Don’t be rude!”

“It’s _my_ birthday!”

And because Doyoung has grown into a young man that doesnt care for frivolous touch, it shocks Taeyong into silence when he’s suddenly swept into a hug, tight and warm and comforting, and is kissed on the side of his head. “Happy birthday, Yongie.”

He pushes his face into the collar of Doyoung’s shirt and breathes in his flowery scent. “Thanks, Doie.”

“Shall we get a house together after college?”

“I think so.”

“Can it be out of town? I don’t want... neighbours. Two at most. Someone to pick up our mail while we’re out, but not so many that we have to socialise.”

Downstairs, Johnny is shouting something at Yuta, egging him on to do something stupid. They’re fun, such fun, such a source of joy, but so tiring. Taeyong doesn’t want neighbours either. “That sounds perfect.”

Doyoung hums. “Just me and you.”

“And the animals and the flowers.”

“And the animals and the flowers,” he agrees, and kisses Taeyong again. “Happy birthday.”

“Happy anniversary, best friend.”

Doyoung smiles happily, and behind him the trees in the garden begin to blossom.

-

Birthdays become something more to him, something completely different from when he was a child. For his seventeenth, Taeil, Johnny, and Doyoung split the cost of renting a cabin near a lake, and they spend an entire week together, running in the water and swimming and burning food on an open fire.

He doesn’t visit his statue, but that’s okay.

On his seventeenth birthday, laid under the stars with his three closest friends beside him, he falls in love.

“You guys mean the world to me, you know that right?” he asks.

“I’m gonna tell Yuta you said that,” Johnny teases.

Taeyong pouts. “It’s not my fault his dad wouldn’t let him come!”

“Our parents keep trying to set us up,” Doyoung says grimly. “I don’t think they’ve realised yet that after more than two hours together we want to kill each other.”

“Taeyong was trying to have a special moment and you idiots are ruining it,” Taeil says serenely. He turns his head to face Taeyong, and under the moonlight he looks like a kind apparition. “We love you too, Taeyong.”

“Yeah,” Johnny chimes in. “Bros for life.”

“Yeah,” Doyoung agrees quietly. “You know how much I love you.”

-

They grow older, and somehow, as Taeyong settles into life, kind of shy but open in the way his parents had raised him to be, he watches Doyoung become more reserved, more isolated, more lonely.

It’s hard to see, but Doyoung is resolute in dealing on his own, and when Taeyong leaves for veterinary school, all Doyoung says is, “When you come back, I’ll have house for us both.”

-

The years away are hard. They’re rewarding, but hard. He hears the cries of so many animals; heals some, loses some. The first time a dog has to be put down while under his care, he cries until he’s sick and is sent home by the surgery to recover.

He wants to ring Doyoung, but he knows Doyoung has his own problems, is struggling to learn everything he can about herbs and medicine from his grandmother, and is probably still struggling from the cruel words and cold eyes of the people that grew up mocking him.

So he doesn’t ring.

When he does, he forces happiness into his voice, asks how Doyoung is, tells him all about the rabbit he saved after healing its broken leg, tells him about his first boyfriend, a fellow scientist focused more on chemistry. He doesn’t tell him about the toll of healing the rabbit, how it sucked life from his own weak body and left him unable to move for hours, crumpled on the floor of his tiny apartment unable to so much as call for help as the rabbit hopped around and nosed at him worriedly. He doesn’t tell him about his boyfriend’s tendency to shout when he was stressed with assignments, screaming at Taeyong and anyone else that was around. He doesn’t tell him that they’d broken up after the guy had gotten so caught up in his rage that he’d left Taeyong frozen in fear when he’d thrown his laptop and cracked a window.

“You’re enjoying it out there in the wide world?” Doyoung had asked one night.

Taeyong had hummed noncommittally, trailing his fingers over the soft fur of a gerbil he was watching for signs of epilepsy.

There’d been a moment of silence down the line, and after the moment passed, Doyoung had said with caution in his carefully masked voice, “You know, if you’d prefer not to live with me after school I understand.”

Taeyong had stopped stroking. “Doyoung,” he’d said quietly. “It’s all that’s keeping me going.”

-

He comes back at the age of twenty two, and drops his bags in the doorway of his new home. The tulip Doyoung’s grandmother had given him is in a vase on top of the fire, and Doyoung’s knitted rug covers the tile floor.

“Welcome home,” Doyoung says from the kitchen. “I’ve made you some tea.”

He’s – he’s too _thin._ He looks gaunt, and pale, his eyes to dark for his complexion, too haunted. Taeyong knows he looks the same, shorter, yes, but just as skinny, just as sad.

“I missed you,” he says, voice cracking somewhere in the middle.

Doyoung puts the mugs of tea down and opens his arms. “It’s okay,” he says. “We can be lonely together again.”

Taeyong sinks into him, pressing his tears into Doyoung’s shirt as the flowers bob and outside the window, crows caw nervously, watching them try to stitch themselves together again.

-

When Doyoung goes missing for almost an entire day, when Taeyong comes back to the house to find Taeil in hysterics, shouting about the moon and faeries and Doyoung is just _gone,_ vanished, no sign of life, and the plants are all dropping to the ground, dying and screaming so loudly that they’re upsetting the birds –

Taeyong’s heart splinters in his chest, and it feels like when he’d first received his gift, when everything had been too much and everything was agony.

And then, like nothing had happened, Doyoung was back again.

Back, but different.

His eyes weren’t hollow, his cheeks not as thin.

He’d been eating well, wherever he was. He’d been sleeping. He’d been resting.

“How long have I been gone?” Doyoung had asked, pale and shaking but dressed well and so soft that it was like the past ten years hadn’t happened, like he was the same kid with the squishy smile that Taeyong had fallen in love with on his eleventh birthday.

“It’s three in the afternoon, Doyoung, it’s been almost a whole day!” he’d found himself saying, though he wasn’t sure if he believed himself anymore. For Taeyong it had felt like an eternity, for Doyoung it looked like it _had been_ an eternity. He didn’t trust time. He didn’t trust himself.

Doyoung tells him and Johnny and Taeil about Jaehyun, the lonely creature in the stone cottage, and there’s not a second that Taeyong doubts Doyoung’s sincerity.

“You... you need to come back,” he says quietly once Johnny and Taeil have gone back to the town. “I think you’re still there, in your head. Why don’t you go to Taeil’s this weekend? He’s having another party, and Yuta will be there. Try and have fun.”

Doyoung cringes, though his heart isn’t in it. “I haven’t seen him since we were nineteen. The elders are gonna try and set us up again, I can tell.”

“Is that so bad?” Taeyong asks as gently as possible, taking one of Doyoung’s pale hands in his own.

“Jaehyun...”

“What about him?”

Doyoung blinks rapidly and shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

-

He doesn’t understand until he meets Jaehyun, human because of his sacrifice, and then he does.

Jaehyun has the same eyes as Doyoung; gentle and sorrowful, and he looks at Doyoung like he’s staring at something too bright, too blinding, too precious to ever be touched.

Taeyong understands then that Doyoung has been alone for so long because of this moment, because someone out there knew that these two creatures of pain and quiet isolation were meant to find one another.

On the shore of the lake, Doyoung strokes Jaehyun’s damp hair from his forehead and presses their faces together. Taeyong can see tears dripping down his cheeks, but his smiling so wide that his face is branded with his joy, and Jaehyun is staring up at him like he’s unwilling to ever look at anything else ever again. It’s a tender moment, one not meant for viewing, so Taeyong turns away and listens to the birds in the trees. They’re confused but pleased for Doyoung, Taeyong’s companion of so many years.

Their song turns sharp, fearful for a second, and then stops.

Taeyong’s eyes snap to the sky to see them darting off, flying into the night with terror on their wings, and his stomach sinks.

He looks back to Doyoung and Jaehyun, but they haven’t noticed anything past themselves, and Johnny and Taeil are fiddling with a tome a little further back from the shore, completely unaware.

Water laps at Taeyong’s feet, icy even through his sneakers, and he steps back.

The water follows.

Taeyong looks out over the lake and sees eyes just above the water, watching him.

They’re dark and cruel, fathomless and cold.

They stare at him, and he stares back.

He’s twenty four years old when he falls in love.

-

Jaehyun lives with Taeyong and Doyoung for two months before the arguing starts.

Taeyong hovers in his room, wondering when the best time to walk through the living room will be so that he can run outside and see to the ducks recovering in the garden, but the arguing doesn’t pause even for a second, and if anything Doyoung’s voice continues to grow louder.

“ – I told you that you don’t have to ask before you leave. Go wherever you like! I’m not stopping you; I’m not trapping you here!”

Jaehyun’s voice replies, quieter, almost defeated already. “If I go, something might happen to you while I’m gone. I would rather stay.”

“You can’t spend your life in this house waiting for one of us to die,” Doyoung spits.

“I’m not-“ but it’s too late. The door slams, and seconds later, Doyoung’s car starts and peels away from the drive.

Gingerly, Taeyong opens his bedroom door and heads into the living room where Jaehyun is stood looking lost. He looks at Taeyong, offers a faint smile, but his eyes are dismayed.

“Would you like some tea?” Taeyong offers. He can hear the ducks, they’re well enough to wait a while, happy enough for him to see to Jaehyun first, a creature he can’t heal with soothing words and a gentle touch.

“Yes please,” Jaehyun says. He hovers over Taeyong’s shoulder as the kettle boils, and when Taeyong makes an inquisitive noise, he steps back, abashed. “Sorry, I’m just used to making it myself.”

“I’ve heard,” Taeyong says, putting a generous helping of honey into both mugs. “You don’t let Doyoung cook his own meals.”

“He can’t cook as well as I can,” Jaehyun says. Then, after a moment, “And I like being able to cook for him. He does so much for other people and I like watching him rest and eat the food I made.”

“He’s a grown man,” Taeyong says, passing Jaehyun his mug and then moving to curl up on the couch. “You can’t coddle him, as much as you want to. It would be like putting a flower under warm sheets; the thought is nice, but he’d wilt.”

“I have to keep him safe,” Jaehyun says. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Taeyong replies. “That’s why Doyoung brought you here, isn’t it? You’re free here, you can do whatever you want. He’s angry that you’re not taking that opportunity.”

“I just want to be with him.”

“But that isn’t a healthy way to live, not for either of you.”

“I don’t care,” Jaheyun hisses.

The tone startles Taeyong and he looks up. For a second he can see the fae spirit in Jaehyun, selfish and eternal and so very good at getting whatever he wants. It makes Taeyong swallow and tighten his grip on his cup, but Jaehyun sighs and the slight malevolence melts from his features.

“I’m sorry, Taeyong. That was rude.”

“It was,” Taeyong agrees. “Especially since I’m trying to help you.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, cowed. “I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“Have you ever spoken to Doyoung like that?”

“No!” Jaehyun says, eyes widening. “I would never!”

“Good,” Taeyong says. “Because if you did I would hurt you.”

Jaehyun’s mouth opens and closes silently.

“I know I’m weak in comparison to you,” Taeyong continues, picking at a thread on his trousers. “I know I look like a pathetic little thing that can barely stand by itself, but I’m not Doyoung, I won’t tickle you with weeds when I’m angry. I speak to animals. Dogs and cats, birds and cows, hawks and rats and leeches and maggots. Your form is human now, and if I can’t hurt you, I know things that can. Things that will.”

Jaehyun’s gaze hardens. “You-“

“I’ve known Doyoung longer than you. Be jealous if you want, like fae are so good at being, but it remains a fact. You’ll hurt him and he’ll hurt you, because that’s what humans do. But if you love him like I think you do, then you’ll listen to me. You’ll move out of this house, you’ll live with Johnny maybe, get a job, go on dates with other people, fuck someone else, and then if you still love him, you’ll come back.”

“I would _never-“_

“The stay here,” Taeyong cuts in. “Stay here and watch him drive himself mad, wondering what if. What if you meet someone else by chance and decide Doyoung’s not the human you want to be with? What if you want to go travelling and he doesn’t? What if someone offers to show you the world and the only thing stopping you is him? He’ll hate himself. He’ll destroy himself from the roots upwards to make you happy, and because you’re so selfish that you won’t find yourself as a separate entity, Doyoung will spend his entire life wondering if you could have been happier somewhere else, attached to someone else.” He drains his mug and walks past Jaehyun, squeezing his shoulder. “You’re so young, so naive. He is too, even worse than I am. I can tell that you love him, but it isn’t fair to either of you if you can only survive when you’re with him. Don’t let him wilt, Jaehyun.”

-

He knew even as he said it that it would cause trouble, but he dealt with the guilt in the silent way he always had.

He went to the ducks and let them splash him in the little pond he’d dug for them, and then he’s gone to Hyuckjae’s farm to monitor the growth of another newborn calf.

He returns home to Doyoung crying, alone. He looks up at Taeyong’s arrive and says, voice dead, “Jaheyun wants to move out.”

-

Doyoung hits him when he finds out what Taeyong had said to Jaehyun. He hits him across the face, so hard that it snaps his head to the side, and then he bursts into tears and gathers Taeyong to his chest, rocking gently.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry Taeyong,” he sobs.

Taeyong combs his hand through Doyoung’s hair. “I didn’t do it to make you unhappy,” he says. His voice shakes. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to make you cry.”

“You’re right though, you’re right,” Doyoung says, not lifting his head. “You’re always right, you always know me, I would have been miserable. We went shopping yesterday and I left him with the cart while I searched for some bread, and when I came back a young woman was flirting with him, and he was smiling. All I could think about was his potential – we live like this, Taeyong, we’re happier alone, but what if he isn’t? He’s never had the chance to know if he prefers people. What if he wants to go to parties and meet new people and fuck strangers and kiss people in bars and go on dates with men and woman? What if he wants _kids?_ What if he stays with me out of guilt or obligation and he’s miserable and I’m too selfish to send him away, I can’t _do_ that.”

They’ve never had to deal with this.

Doyoung has never cared about someone like he cares about Jaehyun, and it scares him. it scares Taeyong too, but on a different level. He’s so in love with the idea of love, but this love is hurting them both, and the thought that love isn’t gentle, love isn’t always happiness... that scares him.

“I think,” he says carefully, stroking Doyoung’s head, “That Jaehyun is kind enough to know not to hurt you if he can help it. I think that love is kindness, it’s honesty and being brave when you’re terrified, and you’re so good at being courageous, Doyoung. I envy you that. Things will work out if you love each other.”

“I’ve never told him I love him,” Doyoung whispers, nuzzling into Taeyong’s neck. “The thought of it fills me with dread. The people I love always end up like me, cold and alone and scared.” _Like my grandmother. Like you. _

Taeyong hears what he doesn’t say. “I’m like this because of myself,” he murmurs. “And your grandmother died peacefully, surrounded by her family. You didn’t do anything to hinder either of us.”

“It’s my curse,” Doyoung says, not looking up. “I suffer and the world suffers with me.”

Taeyong swallows and glances out the window, where the skies are darkening and the birds are growing restless. “I think everyone shares that curse,” he says. “We all impact the world we live in. We all cause suffering.”

-

He doesn’t know why he does it, but he visits Taeil that evening, leaving Doyoung to his solitude and his thoughts.

Taeil welcomes him in with surprise, surprise that grows when the first thing Taeyong says is, “Do you remember the creature that took Doyoung under the water of the lake?”

“The one that spat Jaehyun back out?”

“Yes.”

Taeil searches his eyes. “I remember it. Why?”

“I think it was watching us when we found Jaehyun. I think I saw its eyes above the water.”

“You think?”

“I know. The birds were scared of it.”

Taeil scrutinises him further. “Why are you bringing it up now? It’s been weeks since then.”

Taeyong sinks into one of Taeil’s armchairs and grabs the blanket from the back, wrapping himself up tightly as Taeil settles on the sofa opposite. “I... I don’t know. I’m just curious, I suppose. Have you heard about Jaehyun?”

“I helped him move in with Johnny, of course I’ve heard,” Taeil says. “I also had a vision of you threatening him with maggots, so congratulations on that.”

He flushes. “I know it was petty, but I didn’t know how else to handle it.”

“Next time I would recommend doing literally anything else.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Taeil sighs. “I don’t think Jaehyun is bad, per se, I just think... he needs to figure out what being human means. I know why you said what you said, I do. I get it. Maybe distance will help them.”

“Doyoung is already miserable. He’s acting like Jaheyun has died.”

“From what Johnny has told me, Jaehyun is the same.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Taeyong asks. “Even with the way time passes wherever Jaehyun is from, they haven’t known each other that long. They’re so... wrapped up in each other. It’s like Doyoung’s himself, but he isn’t. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t think Jaehyun understands any more than Doyoung, but they’re clearly both affected. Maybe we should do some more reading.”

Taeyong shrugs. “I mean, maybe it’s just what being in love is like. Doyoung’s the first one of us to go, which is surprising, but I guess it makes sense looking at the way he is with Jaehyun. Maybe love is just like that.”

Taeil looks doubtful. “Maybe we should read, just in case.”

Taeyong thinks of the eyes above the water and his stomach flutters. “Maybe we can ask.”

“Ask who?”

“The creature in the lake.”

Taeil frowns. “Are you crazy? It almost ate Doyoung and he knew it on a personal level. I’d rather not risk a stranger.”

“I don’t think it would eat us.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“If you want to go, you wait for Johnny and me to go with you. Maybe Yuta too, if we can convince him to leave Sicheng for long enough. This weekend maybe?”

“Okay,” Taeyong agrees quickly. “Can I have some hot chocolate before I go home?”

-

Just after midnight the same evening, he arrives at the lake, alone.

He doesn’t know what compels him to lie to Taeil, to say he’s going home and instead to take the detour that takes him deep into the countryside, where the roads thin to single track lanes and the only sounds are of birds and cattle in nearby fields.

He pulls an industrial flashlight out of the trunk of his car and carefully treads his way across the fields, the crows above his head as his friendly guides, chattering to him and each other as they fly.

They depart as soon as he reaches the lake, flying in separate directions like scattered seeds, flowers blooming in the sky as their wings spread and they fly into the clouds.

Then Taeyong is alone with the water. 

It doesnt seem so terrifying as it had the first time, when he’d been here with Taeil, Johnny, Doyoung, a deer’s heart and an ancient book of tomes. They’d been dreading what would come out of the water, what could hurt them, if it would even listen or kill Doyoung on sight.

But Doyoung hadn’t cared. He’d walked past his fear and into the water, and he’d done it to save Jaehyun from a lifetime of being alone.

Taeyong sits at the edge of the water on the sandy grass and wonders why it is he can’t remember the face of the creature that agreed to help Doyoung for an unnamed price and a dead kiss.

“Are you brave, I wonder, or just stupid?”

His head snaps round to find the voice, but no one is there.

Fear hits then, after the delay, as the water begins to lap at his feet. He stumbles away from the edge of the lake but it follows, breaching the land in small ripples that grow steadily larger, as if the water is endless, as if the whole world could be swallowed by this one lake and the creature with black eyes that is a part of it.

“What, you’re scared now? Isn’t it too late for that?”

He picks up his flashlight and turns to run, but something tangles around his ankles and he falls, hitting his arm awkwardly, sending pain shooting up his side in such a force that he keens, loud and strained.

“Where are you going? Didn’t you come here for me?”

Taeyong turns to face the voice, the lake, and finds a man sitting in the shallow water, his pale skin glowing inhumanly in the moonlight, hair dripping, perpetually wet. His eyes are curved from the force of his sadistic amusement, slight smile gracing his mouth. Around his hands, vines grow, thorns drawing blood from cuts that heal seconds after they open.

And Taeyong looks.

He looks.

He looks, and his fear dissipates.

“I know you,” he says quietly.

The creature – _man_ – blinks slowly. “You don’t, darling, or you wouldn’t be alive now to say so.”

“I do,” Taeyong insists, louder. “I know you, I know your face, I know your hands your skin the slope of your nose the pout of your mouth I _swear_ it, I _know_ you.”

“You know me?” the man repeats, cocking his head. “The pretty witch knows me? How odd. Tell me then, pretty witch, what do you know about me?”

Everything.

He’s studied this form, this godlike androgyny, this beauty so sacred that it hurts to look at. He’s stared at it for hundreds of hours, maybe even thousands.

“Little witch?” he asks again, voice doting yet somehow inherently cruel. “I asked you a question. What do you know of me?”

Taeyong blinks, trying to imprint the face into his memory, the minor facets of his expression as he blinks water out of his eyes, as drops run down the gentle curve of his cheekbone, down the smooth column of his neck. He tries to imprint into his mind the way the cold eyes are alive, moving, watching him with an intensity that scares him to his core, because gods, how many times has he wished for these eyes to meet his own gaze?

How many times has he wished to be looked at too?

“I know you,” he repeats, voice almost nothing in the silence of the night. “I’m in love with you.”

-

The creature busts into peals of laughter, laughter so bright and pure that it hurts Taeyong’s ears and makes him shiver.

“Love. You _love_ me.”

He raises his chin despite his trembling. “I do.”

“What, is this your attempt at cutting a deal? Seduce a fae, receive eternal riches, etcetera?”

“No,” Taeyong says. “I just... I know you. Since I was a child, since I was eight years old. I know you.”

“You don’t know me,” the creature spits, suddenly fitfully angry. “You don’t know me or my name or what I am. Do you know what I could do to you? I could kill you without moving. I could kill you in so many different ways; I could kill you and bring you back just to kill you again. I could eat you, darling. I could rip the beating heart from your chest and rub your blood into my skin and leave the rest of you to rot into the soil and become food for the forest. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Taeyong whispers, voice shaking as violently as his hands. He’s freezing, wet from the shallow water and hurt from the fall, but he can’t look away from those eyes, he can’t bring himself to try and run. He doesn’t want to run.

“Then what is it you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

The creature laughs again, and suddenly Taeyong is dry, warm, and the edge of the lake is retreating from the land. The creature stands and dances a few steps back, following the water, features twisted in scornful delight. “You don’t know what you want, little witch? So go home. Get away from here before I take your choices away from you. Don’t come back.”

“Wait!” Taeyong says, stumbling forward before the creature can leave. “You – your name! What-“

“I have thousands of names,” it says, walking backwards into the water, humour fading. “Names older than any of your languages. But this incarnation, I suppose, has come to be known as Ten.”

And then it’s gone, and Taeyong is alone again.

Slowly the birdsong returns, crows peering cautiously from nearby trees to check that danger is gone before flying over and pecking lightly at his feet, inquiring as to his safety. He stares at the water until his eyes start to burn, and only then does he turn away and begin the walk back to his car.

Once he’s in the vehicle, both hands on the wheel, staring at nothing, he realises that he hadn’t asked a single thing about Jaehyun.

It means he’s going to have to go back.

-

“What the hell happened to your arm?” Doyoung asks the following day.

Taeyong shrugs and shuffles past, trying to hide the growing bruising from Doyoung’s line of sight. “I fell over at Hyuckjae’s farm. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, that look horrible!” Doyoung says, standing from the couch. “Wait here, I have a salve that will help speed up the healing that – “ he stops and clears his throat. “That Jaehyun gave me.”

“I’m okay, don’t worry,” Taeyong says, reaching briefly for Doyoung’s arm to squeeze his wrist before moving through to the kitchen and make himself some dinner. “How are you holding up?”

Doyoung makes a quiet, sorrowful noise, so shockingly, openly vulnerable that it stops Taeyong in his tracks. Doyoung tries to cover the noise with a fake laugh, but even that fades into silence when he realises the magnitude of his slip. “I’m... I’ll be fine. I’m used to being on my own, anyway.”

Taeyong doesn’t turn to face him, because he knows Doyoung would just hide himself anyway. “Jaehyun isn’t dead. He isn’t going anywhere.”

“I want him to choose me,” Doyoung whispers. “Isn’t that selfish? He has the entire world at his fingertips, infinite happiness, and I want him to give it all up to be with me.”

“You’re dealing with a fae,” Taeyong says, looking out of the kitchen window. The skies are cloudy and sombre, and he wonders how many people are dying in that moment, swept under the water by beautiful hands that drag you down and never let you rise again. “Don’t underestimate how selfish fae are. If you’re being selfish, I can only begin to imagine how Jaehyun is behaving.”

“That’s what scares me,” Doyoung whispers. “What is he doing? How is he doing it? What... what if I don’t know him at all?”

-

The following week hurts like faded memories of something lost. Doyoung walks the house like a ghost, not sleeping, barely eating. He chews his nails until his skin is bleeding, until his flowers are so concerned that they grow over the bathroom mirror and the kitchen cupboards and trip Taeyong on the stairs, so worried that they can’t control themselves.

Taeyong watches, and the longer he does, the more he feels like he made a mistake, like he took a rock and smashed the pretty little stained glass window of Doyoung’s new life with Jaehyun. Like he’d cracked the glass and now reality was seeping in and marring the bright colours, muddying the waters of his happiness.

He avoids the house he calls home, mainly because of guilt, though partially out of a fear of Doyoung’s unhappiness and the way he bristles when he’s hurt, arming himself against the possibility of more pain. Taeyong’s too vulnerable to survive that kind of crossfire, so he flees.

He busies himself with work; travelling from farm to farm, healing illnesses and cleaning wounds, travelling to the elderly and the weak that can’t get their animals to the town for treatments, helping everyone and everything he can to try and make up for the hurt he’s caused elsewhere.

“Such a sweet boy,” One old woman says, stroking her little terrier’s head as Taeyong listens for the heart murmur he knows will need surgery soon. “A sweet boy with gentle hands. You’ll make someone very happy one day.”

It sounds so like the echoes of Doyoung’s grandmother that his hands still on the dog, his brain clouds for a moment, his vision dulls.

Then he rightens himself, gives the dog one last scratch, and stands. “Thank you. I can come back in... three weeks, shall we say? If you can’t get Teddy to the surgery then I’ll pick him up. It’ll only be minor, so no need to worry. Once his heart is steadier he’ll be back to his old self.”

She peers up at him, small and frail but with a soul so strong that her eyes seem ageless in her lined face. “I trust your word, Taeyong. Take care.”

He leaves in a hurry, and within the hour he’s pulling into Johnny’s driveway and hammering on the door.

Mark opens the door with sleepy eyes and mused hair, but he smiles when he sees Taeyong. “Hey! It’s been ages, how are you?”

“Good, good,” Taeyong says distractedly. “How are you?”

“Fine. College sucks, but what’s new?”

“I get it. Sorry Mark, but can you – is Jaehyun here?”

Mark frowns. “No, he’s at the bar with Johnny. He works there now, didn’t Johnny tell you?”

“You know me; I’m a little out of touch.”

Mark laughs. “You and Doyoung both. If you head over to the bar I can ring Johnny and let him know you’re coming.”

“Thank you,” Taeyong says. He hesitates for a moment, looking at Johnny’s adopted brother, at the man he’s growing into. “You look well, Mark. If you ever need help with your gift, let me know, okay?”

Mark’s cheeks warm. “Okay, thank you. See you later.”

-

The bar is busy as always, full of men and women and everyone in between despite the early hour of the evening. It’s always full, because everyone wants alcohol, and everyone wants it from Johnny, who regulates moods with the ease of a thousand charismatic, handsome young men. Taeyong’s always envied him that; powers that make you likeable? It sounds ideal.

Still, he couldn’t wish it on a better person. Johnny spends his days helping people like Taeyong helps animals, and in that they’re the same. They live almost entirely for the sake of other creatures.

Johnny waves at him from behind the bar, smiling. “Jaehyun’s in the back taking a break, head on through!”

So he nods and pushes past the masses, ducking under the bar to head through the beaded curtains into the small employee lounge that consists of Johnny’s old sofa and a television from before Taeyong was born. And Jaehyun now too, who at first glance, as still as stone, appears to be another feature of the room.

He looks at Taeyong, but doesn’t speak. His eyes are dark, face pale, hands folded neatly in his lap.

Taeyong hovers in the doorway before deciding it would be better without the background noise, so he closes the door and then hovers slightly inside. “Hey.”

“Hello.”

“How much do you love him?”

Jaehyun finally moves. He frowns, slightly, and a small line appears between his brows. “I’m sorry?”

“How much do you love Doyoung?”

“I don’t know how to answer that. There isn’t a part of me that could love Doyoung any less.”

“How is living with Johnny? Working with him?”

“Fine. He is very generous and very kind. I’m lucky.”

Taeyong rubs a hand over his mouth and decides to just get it out of the way. “Have you dated anyone else? Have you had sex?”

Jaehyun’s hands twitch, the only sign that Taeyong’s questions leave an impression in his steady waters. “There was a woman. We went for dinner because she asked me, and we went back to her apartment, but I left before she could kiss me. I know what you want from me, and I know what Doyoung wants from me, but I would rather be alone than force myself to be with someone I don’t care for.”

“You mean that?” Taeyong asks. “You really mean it?”

“I mean it.” Jaehyun smiles then, faint and fae-like. “You both forget that I was not always as I am now. I watched Doyoung and protected him because I wanted to. If I had wished to see other humans, if I had been infatuated with anyone else, I would have followed my desires. Loving Doyoung isn’t following a selfish need, unlike everything else I have done. I just want him to be safe, to be cared for, to be loved. I think that loving him has been the least selfish thing I have ever done.”

“The come with me,” Taeyong says. “And show him what it means to be loved selflessly.”

-

They go back and harass Mark into letting them into Johnny’s bedroom, where Taeyong rummages without guilt for a suit that could fit Jaehyun’s slim form, slightly shorter than Johnny but still a better fit than anything Taeyong owns.

“Do you think the florists’ shop will be open?” he murmurs, searching for a matching tie as Jaehyun shrugs into the white shirt.

“Why would we need a florist?”

“For flowers, of course.”

Jaehyun smiles and shakes his head. “We don’t need flowers, Taeyong. Trust me.”

The drive back to the house is quiet and tense, but not uncomfortably so. Jaehyun looks more at peace than he had in the past handful of weeks, and Taeyong knows now that he can make this right, that he can help.

As they pull into the drive, Taeyong realises why he didn’t need the florist.

Doyoung is stood in the garden, eyes and wide and unseeing as wild daisies envelop him, tangling around his legs and climbing up his body to graze any skin they can reach.

In the low evening light he looks like startdust.

Jaehyun gets out of the car first, but Taeyong follows, hovering back to allow them their moment.

“Why are you here?” Doyong asks. He isn’t hostile, but almost. Cautious, maybe, to the point of being rude. He’s always been that way, ever since childhood. Jaehyun isn’t here to push him over and call him names like the kids of his past, but the potential for pain remains very much the same.

“I went on a date,” Jaehyun says. “With a lovely woman. We had dinner, and I went back to her home. I left minutes later, because she wanted me to hold her. She wanted to kiss. She wanted to be with me, and all I have ever wanted is to be with you. I have been thinking of you all week, wondering if you were sleeping, if you were eating enough, if you were looking after the vegetable garden I had started. Wondering if you yearned for me like I yearn for you: constantly, without reprieve.”

Doyoung stares at him, face pale, lined with exhaustion, comforted by the daisies Jaehyun had sent, encircling him, grounding him. “Jaehyun...”

Jaehyun spreads his hands. “You told me to date, so here I am.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Will you go for dinner with me?”

Doyoung’s eyes widen further, so large and pale that it’s like the stars are resting within him. “What?”

“Will you go for dinner with me? Don’t feel obligated to say yes; Taeyong has already told me he can drive me back to Johnny’s if you say no.” He smiles faintly. “But it’s been a handful of weeks and I already miss you terribly. Taeyong was right when he said that what we has wasn’t... it wasn’t how to do things here. But we can start again, can’t we? Doyoung, you’re always my new beginnings. Will you go for dinner with me?”

“Yes,” Doyoung whispers. The daisies bob with excitement, and Jaehyun smiles so wide that his eyes almost close.

Taeyong leaves them in the garden to text Taeil as he makes some tea, _‘DY/JHN fixed. You can now call me a marriage counsellor.’_

Taeil replies seconds later, the ping of Taeyong’s phone barely audible above the noise of the kettle boiling. _‘Wow. Professor Love is in the building. Can you find me a girlfriend?’_

Taeyong smiles at his phone. _‘I’m a professional, not a magician. Sorry. Hehe.’_

-

He has his first peaceful sleep of the week that night, but when he wakes up the next morning, dawn climbing its way over the hills, a drowsy golden light that shines through Taeyong’s open window, his room smells weird.

Not bad, but weird.

Weird, like pollen, like the height of summer heat in fields of barley and wheat and untidy weeds.

Downstairs, Jaehyun is making breakfast. He smiles at Taeyong when he wanders into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes, following the scent of cooking food.

“Good morning. Would you like to have breakfast with me?”

-

Doyoung sleeps heavily, exhausted after a week of emotional turmoil, and both Jaehyun and Taeyong are happy to let him rest as they eat breakfast and stare at each other.

“This is odd,” Jaehyun says after a couple of mouthfuls. They sit at the table in the dining room, close to the back door which is open, swinging lightly in the breeze, and it feels like the world has stopped moving. It is the effect of Jaehyun’s magic? His spirit? Or maybe just his happiness?

“Why is it odd?”

“I don’t know how to approach you about wanting to be friends.”

Taeyong blinks. “You don’t have to approach me at all. I thought we were already friends.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I don’t think you’re a bad person, Jaehyun. I never did. I think you’ve spent a long time alone and you’re struggling to adapt, but that doesn’t mean you’re bad, it just means you’re a little lost.”

Jaehyun swallows and stares at Taeyong for a long moment before looking out of the window, mouth curling slightly. “I used to be so jealous of you. You got to spend your days with Doyoung, make him laugh, make him smile, see his joy up close. You could hold him when he needed to be held, and receive his comfort in return. For a while I wanted to rip you from your world, but I couldn’t bear the thought of Doyoung losing you. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for who I am.”

With Jaehyun’s calm facade and gentle eyes, it’s all too easy to forget that only a matter of weeks ago he was something else, something that could have killed Taeyong without trying. And now he’s sat having breakfast with Taeyong, looking out the window like he can’t quite believe he’s here.

“Don’t keep apologising for who you were,” Taeyong says finally. “Make an effort to be better. Live your life to make yourself happy, but never forget that who you are impacts the people around you. Doyoung is stronger than he looks, but he’s also oddly delicate. Humans are built like that.”

Jaehyun smiles. “You too, I think. I never thought Lee Taeyong would be the first to threaten me in this world, much less with maggots.”

He giggles and picks up a slice of mushroom from his plate. “Sorry for the dramatics.”

“That’s okay, I deserved it. When you walked in, after Doyoung had left, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was scared of what I was capable of. I still am, but I’m getting better.”

“That’s all we can ask of you.”

-

Jaehyun walks to Johnny’s after breakfast. He’d decided with Doyoung the previous evening that he was better off staying in town, living apart and working at the bar. Dating like normal people, where they go for dinner in the evenings and kiss at the door, and see how it progresses from there.

It all sounded very mature to Taeyong, who had waved Jaehyun off, but then Doyoung stumbles down stairs and looks like he’s been mauled by a feral bear during the night, and Taeyong busts into laughter and can’t seem to stop.

“Taking it slow, huh?”

Doyoung just glares and heads straight for the kettle. “We had a lot of time to make up for.”

“You were only apart for a couple of weeks!”

“You don’t know how frequently we were fucking before that.”

They huddle together on the couch, tea cupped in their hands, and it feels like they’re teenagers again, giggling about relationships and watching the steady climb of the sun. Taeyong has nowhere to be because it’s Saturday, and Doyoung doesn’t have to teach any herbal classes until the late afternoon.

“Remember when we were kids and you would cry over everything?” Doyoung asks while they watch drama reruns on their shitty old television.

“I remember you being mean, but not me crying.”

“Of course that’s what you remember.” Doyoung snorts and passes over the bowl of chips. “I used to say you were too soft, too kind for the world. Everything would impact you so differently, and I thought the only way to help you was to try and toughen you up.”

“How kind,” Taeyong says dryly, though there isn’t any real bite in it.

“Jaehyun is like you were. Like you still are. He sees everything differently to the rest of us and it throws me off balance because I can cut a dead leaf off of one of my plants and he’ll mourn it for days. We’ll watch a show with an awful plot that centres around some kind of forced romance that holds no real appeal, and he’ll stay awake all night thinking of it, wondering how it feels to go ice skating, to trip and land in your lovers arms, knowing you’re safe. I’ll kiss him in passing, after washing the dishes, and he won’t stop touching his lips afterwards like he’s treasuring each touch, like it’s sacred. He was a virgin, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but he was so scared. He was scared to touch me, to mark me, to ruin me. It made me cry, because the first time we tried, he backed himself into a corner and after hours of agitation admitted he didn’t feel worthy of touching me.”

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say. What can he say? This is something beyond him and his small world and his small, small sphere of understanding. He eventually settles on, “But you pushed past that?”

“I wouldn’t say we pushed. Nothing was forced, it just took him a couple of days to realise I had already made my choice, and my choice was him. Once he realised that believe me he had no problem.”

Taeyong laughs a little. “It certainly looks like it.”

“I love him,” Doyoung says. “I love him and it scares me how much I feel when I see him sleeping in my bed, wrapped around a pillow with creases on his skin and stubble on his cheeks. I shouldn’t feel like this for him when I’ve known him less than a year. After everything that’s happened – I don’t know if I should _ever_ feel like this. But I do. I do feel like this, I do love him, and I want to be with him. I want him to be happy and I want to watch that happiness and feel it myself.”

Full of love to the point that it’s almost painful to hear, his words echoed Jaehyun’s from breakfast, his sentiment from the evening before. It’s a wooden stake in Taeyong’s chest, in swiftly and then pulled out slowly, leaving bloody splinters. He’s happy for them, can think of no one more deserving of love than Doyoung, and yet he can’t help but count all the times he’s fallen in love that has never been reciprocated. Doyoung’s right, he’s _always_ right – Taeyong is too soft for this world.

Maybe he needs to find another.

“You’re teaching herbal classes tonight, right?” He asks.

Doyoung nods and flicks to a different channel. “With those college girls that insist tea leaves will cure depression. It’s not gonna be fun, but it’s honest work making them realise they still need to go to therapy.” He pauses. “Why are you asking? Do you want me to stay home?”

“No!” Taeyong says quickly. “No no I just wondered. I think I have to head out to one of the rural farms anyway to check on an ill lamb, and I didn’t want you waiting around for me.”

“Alright,” Doyoung says, turning back to the television. “Let me know if you want me home early and I’ll come. God knows I don’t want to spend my Saturday evening with these college kids.”

-

He’s lying.

He’s a liar.

Does that make him a bad person? A bad friend?

Maybe it does.

-

He waits until Doyoung is gone before packing a warm coat and his flashlight into his car, ignoring the concern of the crows to drive down to the lake once more.

He’s nervous, but not scared this time. Eager, almost, to see Ten. He wants to gaze at his face, fluid with expressions and the thrum of life his image has always seemed to lack. For that, Taeyong will be a bad friend. He’ll be a liar.

The sun is setting when he arrives at the calm waters and unwraps a picnic blanket, sitting down cross legged in his thick jumper and coat to fend off the wind’s chill, waiting.

As he waits, watching the calm surface of the lake, he thinks of his own life, his own still waters. While Doyoung’s strong spirit and affinity for ignoring opinions had isolated him as a child, it was Taeyong’s _oddness_, his relationship with animals, the faces he made, the way he would get top marks in every class despite not sleeping for days on end, the way he’d dance until he was sick just to give him a chance to drown out the noises of the hundreds of animals screaming for help.

It used to upset him, all of it, the unfairness of growing up shy and bullied and gay and different. It used to make him cry into his pillow, into Doyoung’s shoulder, into his breakfast when the thought of starting a new day that would be like all the others was just too much to bear.

He’s spent his life staring at other people as if through glass, through ice, through the still surface of a lake, wondering what would happen if he fell through, if he could gather the courage to jump and join them. He’s never had someone understand that he’s too scared. He’s never had someone that’s understood he needs to be pushed.

The water ripples, and Taeyong blinks, jarred from his thoughts.

A fish opens its mouth and breathes a little before heading back down, and Taeyong’s shoulders relax.

He’s drifting into sleep before he realises it, waiting for the creature that could eat him alive.

-

When he wakes, he’s on his side, curled on the blanket as stray blades of grass tickle at his forehead. The sky is dark and the stars are out.

The birds are utterly silent.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to wake you, and if so, how I would do it. Would I drag you into the water and wait for the cold to touch your skin? Or perhaps I would bring the lake to you, wait a moment and watch you submerge as your eyes opened in panic. It seemed old fashioned though, and I’m a man of the times. Maybe I’d have kissed you awake, because that would have scared you just as much, wouldn’t it pretty witch?”

Eager – why had he been eager?

He’s _terrified._

“Turn over, pretty witch,” the smooth voice whispers, “Let me greet you as is right for fae to great lovely humans.”

The pull of it begins in his chest and moved downwards, then spreads to his limbs and his brain like insidious vines with leaves of whispers singing, _“Do what he wants.”_

So he turns.

He rolls onto his back and stares up at Ten, who is sat beside him on the blanket, dripping water from the ends of his hair and his spiky eyelashes, the point of his nose and the soft curve of his lower lip. He looks like he’s drowning in the sky.

“There you are,” Ten whispers, smiling slightly. “The pretty witch.”

“Taeyong.”

“Hm?”

“My name is Taeyong.”

Ten laughs low in his chest, though the noise still somehow comes out high pitched and childlike. “Darling, you shouldn’t tell the fae your name, not for any reason, certainly not for free.”

“What will you do with it?” He asks. It might be the remnants of sleep or some kind of spell he doesn’t know about, but the fear is draining, leaving him languid and at ease laid on the blanket at the edge of the lake, watching Ten’s silver beauty against the backdrop of the stars.

“Whatever I like.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

Taeyong rubs his sleepy eyes. “Because I came here to tell you about Jaehyun.”

Ten stills, and it’s as if the world stills with him. The wind stops, the lake ceases to ripple. Taeyong dare not breathe until Ten cocks his head and things begin to continue again.

“What about him?”

“I thought I’d come and tell you that – he’s happy. He lives with our friend Johnny and he has a job serving behind a bar, which is hard work, but he earns a lot and lives well. He’s with Doyoung, and they adore each other. He’s happy, I think. He’s loved.”

“And why would I care?”

Taeyong just looks at Ten, like he always has. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you care, I know you love him. You wanted him to be happy or you wouldn’t have helped us make him human.”

“It’s brave to make assumptions like those in this kind of environment. Very brave.”

“I’m at your mercy anyway,” Taeyong mumbles. “I know that. If I tried to leave and you didn’t want me to you could stop me. If I offended you and you wished to punish me, you would.”

“So there is some kind of intelligence in there. What a relief.”

Taeyong scowls. “Why are you being mean?”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re as powerful as you insist, why are you being mean? Shouldn’t you be doing something… I don’t know, all powerful?”

Ten’s expression twists, and immediately Taeyong regrets having ever opened his mouth.

“You want a show, darling? Go home. Riling me isn’t worth dying for.”

“I don’t want to go,” Taeyong whispers. He wants to sit up, to graze his hands along Ten’s cheekbone, to feel if the skin is warm and human or cold and marble, stone beneath his curiosity, unyielding in the reception of his giving.

Ten smiles like the universe is playing cruel games and he is the perpetual victim. “Leave before I remember how hungry I am.”

“Hungry for what?”

“I’m a dark fae, pretty witch. I hunger for whatever isn’t mine.”

Through numb lips he asks, “For me?”

“For you. For everything you are, have been, and ever will be.” Ten puts a hand on Taeyong’s chest and the icy heat seeps through his jumper and forms crystals that prick at his heart. “You smell so good, Taeyong. You need to go while you can.”

“You’d eat me?”

Ten swallows. “I would. I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“The world needs lonely souls like you to make it more bearable for the children that worry for a fate in isolation. Go and be alone, Taeyong, so that the children around you no longer fear the thought of being their own company.”

It hits him in a way so insidious, so personal and cutting and awful that for a moment Taeyong forgets to breathe. When he finally drags in a jagged breath of air into his lungs, when he finally blinks, he’s alone again.

Beside him on the blanket is the faint impression of a slender body, like he’s been visited by a ghost, by something fleeting and impermanent. Like he’s been haunted.

Hunted.

-

For the first time in five years, he goes back to the museum he’d visited so frequently as a child and an adolescent. Now, as an adult just as misplaced as he’s always been, the museum feels like a time capsule beyond its function of housing ancient fragments. It’s a painting, a polaroid picture Taeyong has framed in his memory, gathering dust surely, but as known as the face of his mother, the comfort of Doyoung’s touch.

He retraces the warn path made by his younger self, invisible to everyone else, but so known to his legs that it’s like machinery as he passes the exhibits and trails through room after room until he reaches the sculptures, the room of nothing and everything, the carving of his first love, the serene, awful beauty he’s coveted since first sight.

It’s Ten.

It’s Ten, but it’s also not.

The eyes are the same, alight with what Taeyong now knows is mischief, is wicked delight and hunger.

The face, however, is just different enough to make him pause. The forehead bigger, the nose wider, the lips thicker. It’s Ten through distorted glass, through ripples as opposed to a vision through calmer waters.

Water Fairy, 1798

It’s right, but not quite.

And Doyoung – hadn’t he said, when they’d approached Ten with nothing but fear and hope to save Jaehyun from himself – hadn’t he said that Ten was young? A youth? One that had never taken a human life before?

Taeyong started at the statue despite the birds and the rabbits outside that were begging him for attention. He stared at the sculpture and tried to understand how Ten could be young and yet not, how he could be here and yet not. How he could be loved and yet not.

For the first time in his years of yearning, he approaches the information desk and greets the elderly woman working there. She recognises him instantly and warms, asking him about his infatuation with the statue and if he’d gotten a girlfriend in the time since.

He laughs awkwardly when it feels appropriate to laugh, and then with his courage clutched desperately to his chest, asks “Does the museum have any more information on the Water Fairy sculpture?”

She uses the old computer to do some searching and after more idle chatter prints him off a small sheet of paper, passing it over. “I’m not technically supposed to do this,” she says in a conspirator’s whisper, “But I know you’ll care for this information better than anyone else. I hope it can help you with whatever it is you’re searching for.”

He thanks her and then hurries out to his car, back to the house where Doyoung is cooking and Jaehyun is sat at the dining table, only just holding himself back from interfering.

“Don’t you think that more salt would-“

“I _think, _Jaehyun, that more salt isn’t necessary. It’s bad for you.”

Jaehyun lowers his head and mutters something rude that makes Doyoung laugh outright, eyes warm and affectionate as he says, “Shut up, brat.”

Taeyong wants to sneak past, but the soft moment makes him linger, makes him want, and Doyoung sees him and smiles, waving him over. Taeyong waves a little awkwardly. “Hi guys. Don’t mind me, I’m just going up to do some work.”

That makes Doyoung frown. “You’ve been at the farms a lot recently. More work? Can’t you take the evening off and watch a film with us or something?”

It would hurt more than being alone.

Sitting with them, seeing them as they are, together, imperfect but trying and so clearly in love –

It would hurt to watch much more than it would hurt Taeyong to spend another evening alone.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m pretty tired,” he says. “I’m gonna do some paperwork and then have an early night. Rest up for the coming week.”

Jaehyun cocks his head and eyes him curiously, deeply, so prying that for a second fear begins to harden in Taeyong’s stomach. In the end, whatever it is Jaehyun sees, he lets it go. “I hope you rest well. In the bathroom I placed a small jar of vapour rub I made last week. If you place some behind your ears, on your inner wrists, and at the base of your throat, it should help you sleep.”

“Thank you,” Taeyong says. He looks back to Doyoung, who is staring at him with something soft in his beautiful dark eyes.

“Stop working so hard or I’ll lock you away until you get some real rest.”

“Yes Sir,” Taeyong murmurs. He darts over to kiss Doyoung’s cheek and avoid offers of dinner, running up to his room to collapse on his bed and stare at the ceiling before pulling out the rumpled paper from the museum to finally, after a decade and more, see who the Water Fairy is.

Artist: Unknown

State of repair: Fair. Some scratches, finger reattached after rough travel.

Origin: France. South-East

Dated: 1798

The dates and the loggings aggravate Taeyong because he sees a large body of text coming and he fears reading it, instead annoying himself with silly details he doesn’t care about until he’s so full of tension that he decides to shower and brush his teeth, changing into nightclothes and using Jaehyun’s balm before he settles into bed at not yet six o’clock. Only then does he turn back to the page, to the paragraph he’s terrified will tell him either everything or nothing.

There’s a crash downstairs, something against the tiles on the floor, and then Doyoung’s laughter floats up, happy and free, and Jaehyun’s soon harmonises into the prettiest of songs.

Taeyong looks back to the paper only then.

Curator’s Notes:

While the creator of this marble sculpture is unknown, due to a lack of artistic signature or name, we have found a number of accounts from people in the village of the odd old sculptor. All refer to him as the Mad Man or the Wicked Touched, talking as if he were possessed while endlessly suffering for this single sculpture. It seems that this one boy, matching no other in style or practice, sapped the elderly man of his last years and the strength he must have once possessed. A young merchant found the man deceased at the foot of the finished product, with a note long since destroyed but was summarised quite nicely.

"He is not mine,” it said. “He belongs not to me and not to anyone else, for he destroys what would hold him out of spite and fury and fear. He is not mine, but for a fraction of my youth I saw him, I wished for him, I adored him. The way he killed and ate did not disturb me but instead caused admiration, fear, yes, but longing above all else. He looked at me with his eyes and smiled at me with his bloody teeth and I never forgot that moment. Finally I have created a copy of those eyes. He will come for me now, and I will see him once more. What blessing, what curse.”

The merchant bought the statue from the man’s remaining family but the records can only be traced to 1812 when he died and his son sold the sculpture to an inquiring lord.

Despite years of research, very little can be found about the mythology of a water fairy, and so his true name we may never know. Perhaps when placing the statue in the museum, give it a view of the fountains outside.

Taeyong puts the paper down, closes his eyes, and forces himself to sleep.

When his alarm rings it’s just past one, and there’s no noise of Jaehyun or Doyoung remaining. When Taeyong inquires, the birds whisper that they’re sleeping in Doyoung’s room, sharing sweet dreams.

He shrugs into clothes, takes a cursory glance at his reflection; too thin, hair too long, eyes too big; and picks up the paper, shoving it into his pocket before heading out once again to the lake.

What blessing, what curse.

-

Ten seems to be waiting for him this time, sat cross legged in the shallows, basking in the moonlight. He smiles at Taeyong.

“I had a suspicion you would be back. Isn’t it nice to be correct?”

Taeyong fumbles with the paper in his pocket, his only (terribly weak) excuse to be here. “I wanted to ask you about this.”

Ten cocks his head, still smiling. “About what? Paper? I’m no expert.”

He forces down a scowl and smoothes out the paper again, then again, pretending his hands don’t shake as he holds it out towards Ten. “Read it.”

“If I touch it I’ll get it wet. You read it for me.”

He feels like he’s being toyed with – he _is_ being toyed with. What did he expect? “Okay, I will.”

“Come to the water so that I can hear you.”

Taeyong stares at the surface of the lake. The water is dark, reflecting the night sky, smooth, untroubled by Ten’s movements. He leaves no trace of himself unless he wishes to.

Taeyong steps forward a little, still not at the shore, but close enough that he can project his voice and feel at least a little safer. He clears his throat. “Make sure you listen, okay? It’s important that you focus on what I’m saying.”

“Believe me, darling, you have my undivided attention.”

So he reads, from the dating of the sculpture to the long monologue of the curator’s notes on the origin of the artwork, and not once does he glance up to look at Ten, not once does he check to see if he’s following. Not once do his eyes leave the page, too afraid to see the reaction that may or may not be there. Once he trails off, he continues to stare at the page, like it’s a shield between himself and Ten’s eyes, like it can protect him from the real world.

“Are you done?” Ten asks. “All finished?”

“Yes,” Taeyong murmurs, still staring down at the paper. He wants Ten to admit to something, ask a question – anything.

“Does reading that make you afraid?”

“I was already afraid.”

“And now?”

His eyes burn as the paper blurs. He blinks rapidly to righten his vision before replying, weakly, “I think if you were going to hurt me you would have done it already.”

“Are you sure?”

Taeyong’s hands begin to shake. That whisper, that silky voice –

It hadn’t come from the lake.

He doesn’t look away from the paper so that he affords himself of speaking with a certain voice, rather than the dread that threatens to spill from his throat into his words. “I’m sure.”

Ten’s slim hand pulls the paper from Taeyong’s straining grip. “I’ll ask you once more, darling. Are you sure?”

Finally he looks at Ten.

Ten, stood in front of Taeyong, only a breath away, in his oddly out of time clothes, his long, soaked white shirt, his dripping trousers, his small, shoeless feet. His dainty face, his slim build, his fragile height. His dark, hungry eyes, eyes that don’t belong in a human face, eyes that look like black holes, like the beginning and end of everything. The beginning and end of Taeyong.

“I’m sure,” he whispers.

Ten smiles. “My silly little witch, you’ll be heartbroken when I prove you wrong.”

-

He gets home just before three, cold and wet through despite having never touched the water. He falls into bed and has a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Jaehyun wakes him the next morning, knocking lightly on his bedroom door before pushing it open and entering to leave Taeyong a cup of tea beside his head.

“Thank you,” Taeyong mumbles from his pillow, muddled by sleep but touched by the gesture.

“I put sage in while it steeped. Sorry if it tastes a little bitter.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Taeyong says, sitting up so that he can reach for the mug. “But what made you add sage?”

Jaehyun looks at him quietly from the doorway, his slender fingers lax on the wood of the frame. “Where I’m from is a dark, horrible place, but it taught me many things. Where I’m from, sage is meant to bring clarity. I hope it helps.”

Taeyong’s stomach churns as the door closes quietly.

He sits there, staring at the door, until the mug in his hands turns lukewarm, cold. Only when the frigid liquid tips slightly and runs down the back of his hand does he jolt back into reality and drink the whole bitter thing.

-

“Do you enjoy my company?” Ten asks the following evening. “I don’t offer you much.”

Taeyong shrugs and picks at the hem of his sleeve. “I don’t know.”

“Why do you keep coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Make sure you come back tomorrow, Taeyong. I’m used to seeing you now.”

His heart leaps, but it isn’t fear. He doesn’t want to call it hope, but no other word seems to suit the almost pleasant shiver he feels under Ten’s opaque gaze. “Okay.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear.” Of course he does. He wants to come back; why wouldn’t he? How could he possibly stay away?

-

But life is cruel.

There’s an outbreak of disease on a distant farm, and Taeyong startles awake in the middle of the night, crushed by the screams of cattle and sheep, and drives three hours still in his pyjamas, on unknown roads, because that kind of pain is something that can’t wait until the morning.

The farmer is shocked by his sudden arrival but relieved a registered vet has turned up in the middle of her plight. None of the usual professional questions are asked; Taeyong doesn’t take the boots offered, he wades into the fields of thick mud in his sneakers, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands before he reaches the first of the animals, a small, pathetic ewe that’s bleating her misery and staring at Taeyong with pleading eyes.

Weeks like this are always the worst for him.

He loses a lot of animals, saves a handful, loses more, saves more.

After six days and less than a full cycle of sleep, he’s burnt out completely, his energies so weak that even the birdsong is like distant whispers. Everything is dulled by exhaustion, but he’s done what he can. Almost a third of the animals died, but the farmer is alight with gratification, because it could have been much worse. Disease paired with chemicals from a nearby aerosol factory had left the animals weaker and weaker, and it was a miracle any had survived at all.

Afterwards he had nodded when needed, shaken his head, meekly accepted the enforced offer of a shower and a change of clothes, then listened as she berated him for trying to drive home. He rang Doyoung instead.

Of course, as soon as Doyoung got out of the car and saw Taeyong his nagging began; how pale you are, how much more weight you’ve lost, how unruly your hair is. He nods again and accepts it. Johnny, his saviour in weird stripy overalls, affectionately tells Doyoung to shut up and hauls Taeyong into the back of the car where he immediately passes out. If he’d been awake he would have realised that Johnny had come to drive Taeyong’s car back for him, but he didn’t notice anything.

In fact, one moment he was being gently shoved into Doyoung’s car, the next he was waking in his own bed in fresh pyjamas and it was two days later.

-

Waking from that sleep was like rolling out of a grave and into a world that was spinning faster than you’d ever known.

Taeyong knows as soon as he opens his eyes that he’s not right. He gets up, he stretches, he showers. He brushes his teeth, he goes downstairs to make some food, he looks out of the window as he waits for his toast and he realises it’s the middle of the night, not morning like he’d assumed.

Jaehyun must be with Johnny; his shoes aren’t at the door. Which means Doyoung is in bed, soundly asleep, and Taeyong is ready to start a new day at three in the morning.

He feels kind of weird, but he eats his toast slowly, watching the blank television screen in silence.

He goes back upstairs and sees the note on Doyoung door that reads: _I’m staying with Miss Kim and helping care for her ailing mother. If you wake up in that time and need me, just call. I’m only ten minutes away._

He opens the window in the hall and the crows flock him curiously, worriedly, but Taeyong can’t hear a thing they’re saying past the ringing in his ears.

It’s like he wants to panic, but his body won’t let him. His heart beats sluggishly, his hands tremble, his head feels like damp cotton rotting away behind his skull. He picks up his phone to ring Doyoung, but can’t get his fingers to cooperate, can’t press any of the right buttons.

The phone drops and he stumbles down the stairs, intent on finding a neighbour that can help, but he doesn’t make it past the porch before his knees weaken too and he falls down those few steps onto the gravel below, still not panicked, still not scared, just growing weaker and weaker, like he’s being poisoned by the air like the cattle and the sheep he’d saved and been unable to save.

_Go to the water, _something whispers to him. _Just get to the water._

But he can’t drive like this, can barely _stand _– he can’t get to the lake. He can’t.

His breath rattles in his lungs and for a second his vision whites out, and then he’s back, back just enough to think, _the irrigation store. _The water saved for droughts by nearby farmers is collected into a large open tank just a brief walk from Taeyong and Doyoung’s house. Doyoung often complained about the smell of the stagnant water, the bugs it breeds, the way it looked against the rest of the green, flowery landscape.

There. He can make it there, can’t he? He can go that far?

He stumbles down the driveway and pauses at the gate, trying desperately to drag air back into his lungs, but he’s so _tired. _Everything is so hard.

“Taeyong? Taeyong are you alright? We heard a bang are you- _Taeyong!”_

He just stands there while his neighbours run over, the middle aged woman in her slippers reminding him of his mother, the husband broad and worried, nothing like the thin serenity of his father.

He falls, but the hands that catch him are cold.

-

He wakes up in his bed again.

The light is on, the air frigid, the man sat beside him quiet and smiling in a way that should be terrifying. “You broke an oath, darling.”

Taeyong grunts and rubs his hands over his face. He still feels fuzzy, like cotton, like rainclouds. He still feels weak.

“You don’t seem to realise how important an oath to a fae is.”

“I was busy,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re _sorry? _Sweetheart, you almost crippled yourself from overexerting your gift. What on earth were you thinking?”

“They were in pain,” he says, staring up at the ceiling, the cries echoing through his head like ghosts.”I can’t stand the pain.”

Ten’s finger strokes lightly from his forehead down his cheek to his chin. He sighs. “Breaking an oath to a fae is a life sentence, darling. I could do anything to you now.”

“I thought you could before?”

“Within your realms, yes. Now the realms don’t matter. A broken oath shatters the bonds that bind what you know.”

“Oh,” Taeyong says. He blinks a little, tries to bring Ten’s lovely face into focus. “Well… what are you going to do to me now?”

“It can wait,” Ten says, tracing Taeyong’s face again, slowly, as if savouring the touch. “I can wait until you’re stronger.”

“Kind,” Taeyong murmurs, blinking up at him, content in this dreamlike state. “You don’t want people to know that, do you? That you can be kind. That you’re not the evil you wish you were.”

Ten leans down and kisses him.

It’s been years since he was last kissed, but even without possible comparisons he knows from the moment their lips press together that this kiss is different. It’s something else. Ten’s lips are cold, damp, softer than anything Taeyong has ever felt.

The kiss, chaste, lasting but still, takes all of Taeyong’s breath and leaves him fragile.

Ten pulls back with his eyes open and obsidian. “Take care, Taeyong. The sooner you’re well the sooner you’ll realise just what a monster I am.”

And then he’s gone, and Taeyong is alone.

He’s alone and left with the lingering feeling of the kiss, the lingering sense of drowning.

-

Doyoung barges into his room seconds later, hysterical.

“ – I swear Taeyong I stayed beside your bed for two days without sleep but Mrs Kim was refusing to see a doctor she just wanted to see me and you’d been sleeping for so long that I just hoped you’d sleep through this night too but then the neighbours rang and they said you fell down the stairs of the porch – what were you _thinking_?”

He doesn’t mention Ten. He shows no sign that the neighbours had mentioned him, had even seen him in the first place – so Taeyong relaxes and settles back against his sheets, exhausted once more. “Sorry Doie,” he says pleasingly, “I was disoriented and I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Doyoung sighs and crosses the room. He toes out of his shoes and for the first time since they were kids, since they were small and holding sleepovers every weekend, he pulls back the sheets and curls himself around Taeyong under the covers. “You worry me so much sometimes. Even when we first met and you just looked like a weird little child with floppy hair, you always looked so… so out of your depth. You’re better at masking that now, you look so calm and confident in front of others, but sometimes I still see that little boy full of wonder and terror. I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”

Taeyong hums. “You’re just as bad as me. We’re both bad at functioning and good at hiding it.”

“That’s true, but I’m always ready to defend myself. You’d let people destroy you if you thought it would do good, while I’d take everyone down with me.”

He sighs. Doyoung has a very special way of talking badly of himself. He makes it sound so reasonable, so true – phrasing it like it’s for the best that he’s mean and bitter – phrasing it gently so that you’re convinced for a moment, sold for the second it takes you to realise that he’s delicately grinding down on himself like he wants to leave nothing more than dust behind. He’s good at convincing the world that he isn’t deserving of it.

“I think you’re being unreasonable because you’re worried,” Taeyong says gently.

“Maybe so, but am I wrong?”

“Yes. You’re very wrong. You’re not as selfish as you seem to think, and I’m not as helpless, either. I can stand on my own two feet, I can defend myself, and if I need to then I can make myself happy.”

“But just a nudge of misery from someone else and you’d give it all up,” Doyoung murmurs. “It’s like you live to make sure everyone else is happy, be it injured animals, old women that need help carrying their shopping, or awful men that only know how to take and hurt. There’s no distinguishing, Taeyong, you just give and give to anyone that seems to need it, and I’m terrified that one day there won’t be anything left of you.”

It’s a lot to take in, but conversations like this with Doyoung always are. He’s intense at times to the point of pain, unable to shy away from what most people avoid out of self preservation. He isn’t afraid of confrontation or being disliked. In fact, the only thing he’s ever seemed to truly fear is losing Jaehyun.

Taeyong snuggles closer. “I’m fine,” he says, trying to soothe Doyoung into unclenching his teeth and loosening his shoulders. “I promise I’ll be okay. I took it too far this time, but I know my limits now. I won’t do it again.”

“You fall in love with everything,” Doyoung whispers. “The sunrise, rain, old couples holding hands, children laughing, birds and flowers and pools of clear water. You love like love is kindness, and one day you’re going to love the wrong thing. Something that could ruin that kindness.”

“I’ll just love you then,” Taeyong whispers back, holding him tighter. “I’ll love you and the sunsets, the clouds, the newlyweds, children in silence, dogs and weeds and dry, barren land. I won’t let anything take my kindness from me.”

“You better mean it.” Doyoung’s shoulders finally relax, and he hugs Taeyong back, gently, like he’s scared that squeezing too tight will fracture him. Despite his calm words, his soft embrace, his next words come out emotionless. “You better mean it Yongie, because if someone tries to take your kindness or your happiness I’ll kill them.”

-

Johnny and Taeil visit the next day. Johnny brings flowers and Taeil brings cookies, and they each haul up a chair from the dining room and sit near Taeyong’s bed, watching him methodically chew through cookie after cookie, as if scared they’ll look away and turn back to find him climbing out of the window.

“I made a mistake,” he says finally, frustrated by the awkward silence. “It won’t happen again. You can stop worrying now.”

Johnny blows out a noisy breath and slaps his thighs. “Great! Glad we got that out the way.”

Taeil, however, keeps staring. “Doyoung is worried. He says that even before this episode you’ve been distracted, and I have to agree. You’ve been flighty, and I had a dream a couple of evenings ago. It scared me.”

“What happened?”

“You were drowning.”

-

It takes a week or so before he feels able to leave the house and drive. He’s shaky and pale, exhausted to the marrow of his bones, but he keeps going, because it’s what he’s always done.

Doyoung cooks him a meal every evening that Jaehyun isn’t visiting, and when he is visiting, he wrestles the pan from Doyoung’s hands and cooks for them both. It’s nice, in a way, almost a holiday. He’d passed details of vets he trusts to the people whose animals he’d been tasked to take care of and they’d all wished him well with warm words. He was nothing short of pampered.

Then the morning he’s decided is the official end of his recovery period he gets into his car with his paper pale skin and shaky hands, and he drives straight to the lake.

-

Ten’s lounging by the water, trailing his hands along the surface and creating little patterns. He smiles at Taeyong’s approach. “My darling is back, how sweet.”

He wants to tease, _did you miss me? _But god, he doesn’t have that kind of self assured courage. “Hello.”

“You’re back early; I’m surprised Doyoung let you out of his sight.”

“I wanted to ask if you’d come somewhere with me today.”

Ten blinks slowly. “Oh? What makes you think I can leave the lake?”

“I read a lot whole I was recovering,” Taeyong says, forcing strength into his voice. “I read an article from a centuries old book that said creatures like you are fine in both worlds, but the water is your home and the passage between places. It said you’ll be fine.” Also that the deer heart they’d dropped into the lake when first summoning Ten months ago had been useless, but he doesn’t want to bring that episode up out of fear of where it will lead the conversation.

“So you know I _can _leave the lake. What makes you think that I _want _to?”

“Your curiosity. You want to know what I think is important enough to ask you to leave.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Ten stands, fluid like the water he becomes. He gestures one dripping hand towards Taeyong. “Lead the way, darling.”

-

One minute Ten is soaking the passenger seat of Taeyong’s shitty old car (which is weird enough as it is; Ten looks so out of place in a modern vehicle that it feels jarring to see, like a regency gown in an office, a jewelled crown discarded beside the sewer). Ten sits with his head against the window, his legs curled to his chest, his hair dripping water into the fabric of the seats and stifling the car with the smell of moss and rain.

Then they arrive at the museum, Taeyong climbs out of the car and sees that Ten does the same, only he doesn’t so much look like _Ten _anymore.

He’s dry.

His hair is a silky, inky black that curls around his ears and grazes the skin just below his eyebrows.

His clothes, no longer wet linen, are modern; black jeans and a bright purple shirt and leather sandals.

He looks good, looks natural in this new environment, but more than anything else, he looks _human._

He smiles, and he looks like a young man, devious and intelligent and clever and beguiling. He looks like a man that you’d watch from a store window, like a man you’d dream about going dancing with, a man that would make you laugh in the midst of grief or cry in the throes of happiness.

Taeyong is twenty four when he falls in love.

“Well? Where are we going?”

“Oh!” His thoughts are thrown back into his body. “Sorry, it’s this way.”

He leads Ten up through the museum’s front doors, greeting the staff politely but quick before hurrying through the great white rooms to the sculpture, to the carving that he’s loved for so long, he steps back then, after a moment, to see if anything crosses Ten’s features.

Half of him expects laughter, mockery. The other half expects indifference, a blank mask that asks, _this is why you brought me here?_

But Ten surprises him. He peers up at the statue curiously, circling it, eyes greedy over the form and the details Taeyong knows as well as he knows his own body.

“So this is what you meant when you said you knew me,” Ten says quietly. A toddler, tugging on the hand of his mother, points at Ten and laughs. His mother shushes him without looking, but Ten grins at the child, wild and wicked in a way that makes the child squeal in delight.

Taeyong feels like he fell into another version of reality. “I’ve been coming here since I was a child. I recognised you.”

“You recognised something, yes, but this marble isn’t me. It’s me as I was before I was me.” Ten’s smile dims as he looks back at the statue. “Past lives are odd for creatures like myself and Jaehyun and those we know from our own bleak world. You wake up with blurred memories that don’t belong, like the ghost of an injury your ancestor sustained. You feel it in your bones, but sometimes it takes a while to connect the dots, to understand the pain’s origin. Sometimes you don’t feel it at all, until you do, and then it’s there forever, seared into you deeply enough that once you’re dead and rotting like the others you know it will haunt the next version too.”

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say. Ten’s eyes are unreadable. “Do you… do you remember this? The man that carved it?”

Ten laughs, but there’s no humour in it. “Hundreds of people have carved me, tried to copy my image and force me to stay. It would be impossible to remember them all.”

“You do remember him, don’t you,” Taeyong says quietly. Ten is unreadable, but there’s something in the blankness of his eyes that says he’s deliberately hiding away. “Did you know him? Talk to him?”

“Don’t push me.” Ten’s voice is hard and cold.

Taeyong flinches. “Sorry.”

“You should be. You bring me here to what, satisfy a curiosity? You have no idea what you’re playing with.” He smiles again, angelic and horrifying. “But you’re still weak, still so fragile. I suppose I’ll humour you a little longer.”

-

They end up in the museum café, after Ten spends a number of hours walking around the exhibits, asking questions, charming the staff. Taeyong follows in a kind of stupor, because Jaehyun had spend a majority of his lonely life watching people from his land and he’d _still _struggled in the beginning to act like a person. Ten gives the performance of a lifetime, laughing and dancing through the museum like there’s nowhere he’d rather be, like he lives entirely for this moment. Like he’s the same as everyone else but slightly _more, _more charming, more beautiful, more intelligent, more _everything._

Taeyong sips at his ice latte and watches Ten play with the teabag in his cup, uncaring or uninjured by the boiling water reddening his fingers. Sometimes it’s like watching a child, and others it’s like watching something ancient.

Ten flicks his wet fingers and gets green tea on Taeyong’s face. “Pay attention to me.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

Taeyong wipes the tea off his face. “I am.”

“Then tell me what I just said to you.”

Taeyong frowns. “Is this a test? You didn’t say anything to me, you were just playing with your green tea.”

Ten frowns in return, a mocking mirror of Taeyong’s own expression of confusion. “Fine. Let me try your drink.”

Taeyong passes it over and Ten takes a sip, then cringes and shudders delicately. “That’s fucking disgusting.”

“I like it.”

“It’s horrible.”

“It’s nice.”

“It’s bitter and weirdly sweet.”

“It’s just caramel coffee. Have you never had coffee?”

Ten smiles, resting his chin on his hands as he leans across the table. “What need have I for coffee when I have hearts to sate my hunger?”

And just like that Taeyong is ripped from his false world, back into reality. He pushes his coffee away, stomach too tight to drink something so sweet.

At his expression Ten laughs. “What, did I remind you? Did you forget, darling?”

“Do… do you want me to take you back to the lake now?”

Ten leans across the table again, grazing Taeyong’s cheek with his lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”

-

So he drives back, and the weight of Ten’s gaze is so heavy that a couple of times he considers opening the door and just dropping out, but he somehow keeps his head.

It’s mid afternoon, and this is the longest time he’s ever spent with Ten, who had released his human(ish) guise the moment he got into Taeyong’s car and was once more dripping water everywhere.

“You smell odd, you know that?”

Taeyong looks at Ten out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, I know. Kids used to tease me about smelling like dirt. I guess it’s better than sewage or something.”

“Not dirt,” Ten says, finally looking away. He tips his head against the window and watches as city turns into fields and hills, as the lake draws ever closer. “You smell like the forest after rain. Fresh and new, like something honest and healing.”

Taeyong slows the car to a stop and Ten doesn’t hesitate to get out. His heart hammering in his throat, Taeyong opens his mouth to speak – to question? Goodbye, maybe? – but nothing comes out.

“Come visit me soon, darling,” Ten says softly. “The water already misses you.”

-

Johnny is knitting with Doyoung at the house. It’s weird, but not the weirdest thing Taeyong has walked home to find, so he doesn’t question it.

“Good day?” Doyoung asks quietly. It’s only then that Taeyong notices Mark on the other sofa, sprawled out and sleeping with his mouth open.

“Fine. Is Mark okay?”

“His powers are being kind of whack. You know what being a teenager is like,” Johnny says. “He’s jumping while he dreams and it’s stressing him out, so I brought him here to see if Doyoungie could give him anything and one cup of chamomile later he’s out like a light. That was three hours ago and he hasn’t moved since.”

“Oh,” Taeyong says faintly. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“His gift will regulate eventually like they all do, it’ll just take some time,” Doyoung says. “Anyway, where have you been?”

“I went to the museum.”

Doyoung lifts his brows. “It’s been a while; I thought you must have lost interest.”

He hedges. “I was… showing someone around.”

Johnny perks up. “What, like a date?”

“No, absolutely not like a –“

“Just the two of you?” Johnny interrupts. “Alone? Guiding each other around a museum? Sounds like a date to me.”

“It wasn’t –“

“Are you attracted to him?”

“I… maybe?”

“Is he attracted to you?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong whispers. “I really don’t know.”

“Ask him then,” Doyoung says, not looking up from the yarn that was slowly transforming into a scarf. “But from here it sounds a lot like a date.”

-

He tries not to think about it, and because he doesn’t want to be pathetic, wide eyed and beguiled, so he forces himself not to return to the lake. He reaches out to others instead; he helps animals as much as he can with his still shaky powers, he goes to Taeil’s many gatherings and sits complacent as the elders try and pair him off with any man or woman that’s within a decade age bracket. He helps Doyoung gather herbs and sometimes he goes to Johnny’s bar to see how Jaehyun is holding up.

He’s there one evening, nursing his one drink, when Yuta hugs him from behind and lifts him off his stool. “Hey there stranger.”

And – yeah. It’s been too long. They move in different circles now but god, Yuta has always been one of the people Taeyong trust the most in the world. He hugs him back just as hard, pressing his face into Yuta’s neck and seeking comfort in the familiar scent. “Hey, I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too,” Yuta says, rocking them from side to side. He smells like whisky and his eyes are bright, but he’s like this anyway, alcohol has nothing to do with it. “You wanna come sit with me and Sichengie?

And because Sicheng is quiet, kind, and subtly hilarious, Taeyong says yes despite his weird mood, and is immediately cheered by how happy Yuta is with Sicheng, how they seem to gravitate toward one another, unknowingly, inevitably.

“You look so happy,” Taeyong says to Yuta while Sicheng gets them another round.

“I am.” Yuta replies. “Sicheng makes the chase worth the effort, you know? He makes me glad I didn’t give up.”

“He looks pretty smitten.”

Yuta glows. “He is. Can you blame him though? Look at me.”

“You’re very attractive,” Taeyong agrees gravely. “But Yuta, that’s the least interesting thing about you. Everything else is even better.”

Yuta laughs, delighted, and fans himself. “You’ve earned another free drink, jeez. If you keep going there won’t be room for Sicheng in the bed beside me and my ego.” He sips his drink and his eyes darken. Taeyong’s stomach drops. “So have you found anyone yet?”

Of course.

“Uh,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He laughs, trying to play it off, but the sound comes out squeaky and nervous. “Not really. You know me.”

“I know Doyoung too, and somehow he managed to slip into matrimonial bliss without me noticing. One minute the elders were trying to force us together –“ he raises his hands, “- and I’m not above admitting I offered to warm those sheets, because he’s my bud but he’s also unfairly attractive and I’m not blind, you know? But anyway, I’m digressing, and I’m not allowed to talk about anyone’s ass other than Sichengie’s now or he gets pouty.”

“Good job he’s being flirted with at the bar and isn’t here hearing this then,” Taeyong says dryly.

Yuta looks over, but after a pathetically concerned glance, he scoffs. “It’s just the usual crowd. Sicheng knows how to handle them.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I have an empty wine bottle right here ready to meet someone’s skull,” Yuta says, serene, like they’re discussing the weather instead of the possibility of bludgeoning strangers. “Stop trying to distract me though, you’re not usually this flighty, what’s going on?”

Pathetically, he caves. “You have to promise not to tell anyone. Not Doyoung, Jaehyun, not even Johnny. _Promise.”_

“I pinky swear.”

“I think I’m…” he cuts off, groaning. “God, I don’t know! I feel like a kid!”

“That usually means it’s love,” Yuta says. “When you’re all confused and gooey.”

“I’m scared,” he admits, saying more than Yuta could ever understand. “I’m terrified of what he could do to me.”

“That’s what love is like,” Yuta says, looking over at Sicheng with a tender expression. “Risking yourself for your feelings, leaving your heart open and vulnerable.”

“What if he eats it though?” Taeyong whispers.

_“Eats it?” _Yuta repeats, eyes wide. He laughs. “Jeez Taeyong, if you’re scared your guy might eat your heart you might as well make the jump. Sounds like you’re fucked either way.”

-

It’s difficult to drunkenly convince a taxi driver to drop him off in the middle of nowhere, but a generous tip goes a long way.

“You promise you won’t die out here?” The woman asks, unconvinced. “The police would think I killed you.”

He waves off her questions and stumbles out of the passenger side. “I won’t die, I’m too tipsy.”

Yuta has given him a rare form of courage called idiocy, and Taeyong isn’t about to let it go to waste. He uses the faint light from his phone to guide him through the fields, stumbling in dips and tripping over mounds, and for some reason it’s hilarious. He giggles the whole way; laughing at himself and the pathetic situation he’s in, the sheer stupidity of it all, the simultaneously weightless and dragging feeling of being too deep into something to ever see the surface. It might be the gin, but it all seems so funny under the moonlight.

He reaches the lake in twice the amount of time it usually takes to walk from the distant roads, and much to his own humour, his body doesn’t seem to care that he doesn’t see Ten. He sits in the grass, staring at the water, and it’s an oddly warm evening for the time of year, almost unnaturally so. The grass feels soft, welcoming. He’s asleep before he can question it, before he realises that the gentle noise he hears isn’t wind but laughter, quiet and fond.

“Missed you,” he mumbles on the edge of consciousness.

“Likewise, darling.”

-

Doyoung laughs at him when he gets home the next morning, hungover and pitiful, covered in dirt. Some kind squirrels had led him through the fields, a shortcut that missed the roads and took him directly to his own front door, but Doyoung doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t have to know _any _of it, so Taeyong just hangs his head in shame and makes grabby hands until Doyoung rolls his eyes and begins making a mug of tea.

“Did you have fun at the bar?”

“Yes thank you.”

“Where did you spend the night? Taeil’s garden?”

“Just the grass in a park, I don’t know,” he mumbles.

Doyoung’s eyes narrow. “Idiot! Do you realise how dangerous that is? Anything could have happened to you! Were you robbed?”

He hangs his head a little lower and thinks, _Doie, I wish with all my heart I could tell you the truth of it all. _“I wasn’t robbed, I’m fine.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” he says, pretending to be thoroughly chastised. It isn’t hard; he already feels sorry for himself and his general state. “Sorry for making you worry again.”

“You’ll make me go bald and then Jaehyun won’t love me anymore. Think about that next time you go to do something stupid.” Despite his harsh words, Doyoung hands Taeyong a steaming mug of ginger tea and kisses him on the cheek. “Go shower, the tea will be a good temperature when you get out, and you’ll feel much better. Do you have any appointments today?”

“Only some drop ins.”

Doyoung nods. “Good, you’re probably still too drunk to drive anyway. I’m home too, so just shout if you need me for anything.”

“I love you,” Taeyong says, maybe the first honest thing he’s said to Doyoung that day. “I love you so much, Doie.”

“I love you too,” Doyoung says. “But you smell like old pond water. Please shower.”

He goes upstairs laughing, and the shower seems to melt away the general grossness of the hangover; what the shower can’t save the tea helps with, and he feels almost human again by the time he receives his first visit from a middle aged woman who doesn’t seem to understand that for her obese cat to lose weight she needs to stop feeding it so much.

“Cheese isn’t good for cats,” Taeyong says as gently as he can. “He’s grumpy because he wants to eat, but you’re feeding him things that he isn’t supposed to eat which is making him ill, and then you overfeed him too. He’s bound to act out.”

The woman pouts, but louder than her frustration is the cat’s. It sits there in her arms like a deflated beanbag, begging to be saved.

Taeyong hedges a bet on whether Doyoung will kill him for saying, “I don’t mind taking him for a week or so if you like. I can develop a diet plan and get him started, and then all you’d have to do is follow my instructions and bring him back for a checkup a couple of weeks later.”

“Oh Taeyong you’re an _angel,” _she says, almost throwing Mr Paws at him in her haste to leave. “If you insist then I accept. I’ll contact you in a week to see how he’s doing, give my regards to Doyoung!”

And then she’s gone.

As soon as the door closes Mr Paws, in all his girthy glory, situates himself in the middle of Taeyong’s lap and begins purring up a storm. He’s a tabby, still pretty young, with gentle, if not slightly bored eyes. Taeyong rubs one of his ears and listens to the purrs grow louder as the cat begins to dose.

Doyoung finds him like that an indefinite amount of time later. He stares at the cat with a bleak expression. “We’re going to be keeping that stupid fat cat, aren’t we.”

“She clearly doesn’t care about him,” Taeyong says gingerly, “And you know what shelters are like when the cats are anything other than cute little kittens, what chance does he have? Maybe-“

“It’s fine,” Doyoung says suddenly, stopping Taeyong’s word vomit. “If you want to keep him. He might keep the rats away from my vegetable patch.”

“Wh… Really? You mean it?” Taeyong asks, bewildered.

Doyoung reddens. “Jaehyun loves cats. If I make you get rid of it he’ll be sad, and I don’t need both of you sulking with me.”

“I can’t keep him forever, it would interfere with my visits and the schedule of other visiting animals,” Taeyong says, more to himself than Doyoung. “But if we foster him for a while, help him lose a few pounds, maybe start looking for a suitable forever home…”

“What do you mean? Johnny and Jaehyun are right there.”

-

Johnny must break every possible speeding law to get to the house, and as soon as he sees Mr Paws it’s love at first sight. He scoops up the cat and cradles him, nuzzling his face into the fur. “I don’t care what Mark or Jaehyun says,” he mumbles, “This is my fat forever baby. I’m keeping him forever and ever.”

“I still need to talk to his owner,” Taeyong says, but Johnny shuts him up with just a glance.

“You think a middle aged woman has any kind of power against my ass and my _actual _gifts of persuasion? I probably won’t even need to use the latter.”

Taeyong throws up his hands. “Mr Paws is yours then, I guess.”

The noise Johnny makes is inhuman, shrill and horrifying. “His name is _Mr Paws? _This is the best day of my fucking life.”

-

Jaehyun comes over for dinner and smiles faintly at Taeyong. “You look much healthier.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it. I can tell you’ve regained a lot of your strength, and you look happier.”

Johnny, Taeil, and (a very resigned) Doyoung are playing with Mr Paws in the living room. It would be difficult _not _to be happy. “I suppose I am happier.”

“I’m glad. You deserve happiness.”

He gives Jaehyun a hug, maybe the first of many, because they both sink into it like they’ve been waiting for the chance. “Thank you, Jaehyun. I think so too.”

-

He has a busy week with lots of check ins; chickens that refuse to lay their eggs, birds with broken wings, dogs with limps and cats with attitude problems. All small and mundane tasks, but they solidify the routine that Taeyong had missed, and he sleeps well each night, pleasantly tired.

Another week passes much the same; there’s another outbreak of illness he has to deal with, but he’s better this time. There are other vets to help, and he looks after himself. Still, exhaustion weighs on him, and it isn’t until the following Friday that he has a real moment to himself, and he realises he misses Ten.

Not like a scared curiosity that hasn’t dimmed, but he actually _misses _his company. He’s bratty and selfish and dangerous beyond words, but he’s funny. Quick and biting and beneath it all he’s kind, and Taeyong misses him.

So he goes to the lake.

The sky is pale, the sun setting behind a sheet of thin white clouds, and the air is warm and still when he sees the calm waters ahead. Ten is stood in the shallows, spinning slowly as vines dance around his feet and trail up to curl around his arms. His eyes are closed, his face turned to the sky, and if he were anyone else Taeyong would assume he hadn’t been seen.

But it’s Ten.

It’s Ten, which means he’s probably known Taeyong was coming before Taeyong had even decided to leave the warmth of his home and trade it for the biting cold.

“Why are you called Ten?” Taeyong calls out as a greeting. He stands by the edge of the water in his old sneakers, his baggy jeans and vintage (his dad’s old) shirt. He wants to see Ten smile. “I just realised I never asked where you got your name from.”

“I named myself,” Ten says without opening his eyes. “It’s something that stuck with me from a previous life, though I don’t know which one. Ten is such a perfect number, don’t you think? The first with two digits. The beginning and end of something. Ten commandments, Ten rules I was created to break. A one and a zero; the number that’s everything and the number that’s nothing.” He cracks one eye open. “I also think it sounds cool.”

Taeyong laughs, surprising himself so that his cheeks warm and he puts a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, that wasn’t funny.”

“Really? I was trying to be.”

“Oh, in that case it was hilarious.”

“Why are you here, Taeyong?”

His good mood dims slightly at the suddenly harsh tone. “Hm?”

Ten looks at him as the vines dissipate. “I asked why you’re here, instead of with your friends, your family. Why are you here and not at the bar with the red haired one? Why aren’t you planting flowers with Doyoung? Playing with that cat as your friends watch?”

“Are you… are you _jealous?”_

Ten laughs, loud and harsh, and suddenly the weather isn’t so pleasant anymore. An icy wind blows in and Taeyong has to cup his arms to keep himself from being bitten by the cold. “You think I’m jealous? Of what? Of _you?”_

“I don’t know!” Taeyong says helplessly. “Why are you being like this? What has happened?”

Ten walks out of the water, stopping only inches away from Taeyong, eyes wide and writhing with malice. “You think I’m jealous? How could I be jealous of those men when I know so much more about you than they ever could?”

Taeyong swallows, fear beginning to spread from his stomach to his limbs, turning his fingertips numb. “I don’t understand, Ten.”

“Do they know you’re a virgin?”

It’s like the world stops around him as the words settle into his body like lead bricks. Taeyong whispers, “What?”

“No, they don’t know. You have the lips of a whore; no one would guess you don’t know how to use them. Besides, the delicate crux of virginity isn’t something that someone like you would want to talk about. You hate how scared you are of love, despite how much you crave it. You’re so terrified of what love does to people, aren’t you darling? I bet your relationships are short ones, short and brief and so scarring that you still carry them all like weights dragging you down. You’re so beautiful that it drives them mad, doesn’t it? And that scares you. You fear ruining people, you fear them ruining you – no wonder you’ve never let them touch you, mark you, _destroy _you – what a waste it would have been.” He stops for a moment, smiling beautifully, mercilessly, as Taeyong shudders. “The human that looks inhuman with the soul of a star, distorted and defiled by the hands of selfish greed. What have I to be jealous of, darling? I know you better than you could ever hope to know yourself. I know you like no one else will ever know you.”

“Why would you say that to me,” Taeyong whispers. It isn’t a question, there’s no inflection in his voice, no inquiry – there’s nothing there. Empty like he feels.

“Why would I say that?” Ten repeats, cocking his head like a child. He smiles again, full of satisfaction and spite. “Because I can.”

Taeyong leaves, and Ten doesn’t stop him. He walks to his car, unlocks it with violently shaking hands, and then sits staring at the wheel as the sky starts to darken around him.

Doyoung rings once.

Twice.

Johnny rings.

Taeil.

When Doyoung rings a third time, Taeyong finds the strength to pick up.

“- always do this _right _when I think I can let you out of my sight! You go off wandering and freak me out and then Taeil rings me and says he had a vision of you drowning – _not even the first one _– and you leave me at home to worry! Where are you?”

“Sorry,” Taeyong says, but it comes out near silent. He clears his throat and tries again. “Sorry. I went for a drive, but I’m feeling ill so I pulled over to rest.”

“Where are you? I can come and pick you up, just a second while I find my keys-“

“It’s fine,” he cuts in. “I’m coming home now.”

“Are you sure?” Doyoung’s voice warms, melting from fear to a softer form of concern.

“I’m sure. I’m probably going to go straight to bed though, I think I just need to sleep this off.”

“Alright, Yongie, if you think that’s for the best. I’ll be here if you need me at all. Hurry home.”

-

It takes another twenty minutes before he can gather the strength to start the car.

-

He sleeps all night and well into the next day, and he doesn’t get out of bed even when Doyoung knocks gently and peers in. “Yongie, how are you feeling?”

“Bad,” he says, barely audible. “Doyoung, I feel really bad.”

Doyoung comes over to stroke the hair from his head. “Is there anything I can do? Is there anything I can get for you?”

“No thank you,” he says, turning around so that he doesn’t have to look at the concern anymore. “Just let me rest.”

It hurts Doyoung and he knows, but it’s like he’s not in his body. He’s floating somewhere above it, or maybe sinking somewhere below, but wherever he is, he doesn’t want it to be here.

When evening comes and he still hasn’t left his bed, still hasn’t eaten or even cried, he sits up. A glance in the mirror tells him he looks just as bad as he feels, like all the life has drained from him and left a body without animation. He looks pale and drawn and ghostly.

_You have the lips of a whore; no one would guess you don’t know how to use them._

He rings Yuta. “Hey. Are you at the bar?”

“No man, we’re at that new club downtown. Why, you in?”

_I know you better than you could ever hope to know yourself. I know you like no one else will ever know you._

“Yeah, I’m in,” he hears himself say. “What do I wear?”

Yuta laughs, loud and wild and free. “Anything you like, Yongie, you look good in anything. Isn’t that right Sicheng?”

Sicheng takes the phone. “Hi Taeyong. There isn’t really a dress code but it’s kind of alternative here, if that helps.”

“Thanks guys, I’ll see you soon.”

“We’ll hang outside to wait for you if you let us know when you’re nearby.”

So he rummages through his wardrobe with the most purpose he’s felt all day, looking for anything that fits the general term _alternative. _He goes with tight black jeans and an oversized shirt which is kind of what he usually wears anyway, but it’s fine. He adds a couple of necklaces, a couple of rings. He stares at himself in the mirror and looks for the part of himself that’s _inhuman, _the factor that’s _so beautiful it drives people mad. _He just sees his usual face, exhausted, his weirdly large eyes and his veiny arms and his pointy shoulders. He doesn’t see anything worth coveting. He doesn’t see for Ten to consider worth destroying.

But that’s not how fae work, he reminds himself, still staring. They destroy whatever they like. Who is there to stop them? Why did Taeyong think he had enough of an impact to change the nature of a creature that respects only death?

-

He reaches the club and sees Sicheng first, his freshly blonde hair shining under the low light, the leather choker thick around his neck, Yuta’s hand secure around his weight.

“Hi guys.”

“Taeyong! You look pretty hot, A for effort.”

Sicheng looks at him in that calm way he has. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “I just – you know. I wanna let go a little I think. Maybe I need it.”

“You wanna let go?” Yuta asks. At Taeyong’s nod, he smiles. “Consider us your enablers, in that case. First round is on me.”

Inside, crushed by the volume of the music and numbed by the shots, Taeyong slumps against the bar and drinks from the third glass Yuta had bought for him.

Yuta, meanwhile, watches him with concern. “My dude, this isn’t like you at all. When was the last time you were in a club?”

Taeyong laughs without humour and finishes the glass. “I don’t know. College? One of my boyfriends loved clubbing - I can’t remember his name right now, but he’d drag me out and then use the guys that flirted with me as an excuse to shout in my face and call me names. Sucked.”

Yuta frowns. “Tae, are you okay?”

“Not really, but what can I do?” he asks, not really looking for an answer. He’s doing what he can – trying not to think about how raw and hurt Ten looked behind the smug smile as he’d ripped Taeyong’s feelings out with a bloody fist.

“You ever considered therapy? I hear that shit does wonders.”

“I don’t need therapy, Yuta. I need to have sex.”

“Oh,” Yuta says faintly. He orders them both more drinks, not bothering to so much as look for Sicheng, who is dancing like there’s no one else in the world, way too out of it to consider drinking anything. “What happened to your dude? The one you were getting all dopey for?”

“I guess... he just doesn’t care about me.”

Yuta passes Taeyong his drink. “You wanna elaborate on that or just bottle it up until you die old and bitter and I have to find the forgotten poetry of your lost love in your attic somewhere and then sell it to a collector for millions and retire to the south of France?”

It draws a reluctant laugh out of Taeyong. “You’re so dramatic, I’d almost forgotten.”

“Seriously man, tell me about what’s going on. Don’t make me ring Doyoung, I really don’t wanna have to do that. He shouts at me a lot.”

“I don’t know what to say. The guy I like – I mean the one I told you about - I don’t know. I didn’t see him for a while and then I went back yesterday and he was really horrible.”

“Dump him.”

“We’re not together.”

“Then just stay away Taeyong, what the fuck? Don’t let people treat you like shit.”

“I think he’s scared,” Taeyong says, barely audible. “I think he’s so used to being alone that now I’ve come along and disrupted it, he realises how it feels to no longer be happy with just himself. I think he’s terrified of that. I think he blames me for his loneliness.”

“Doesn’t excuse dickish behaviour, my good man. Want me to kick him in the balls?”

“No. He might kill you.”

“I’d like to see him try.”

“Just... help me have fun tonight? Please?”

Yuta pulls him close, hugging him tight for a moment that the world pauses and Taeyong can breathe again. “Anything, honey. Anything you need. You want sex? I’ll fucking make sure you get laid.”

-

And Yuta is way too good at following through on his promises, because a couple more drinks later, Taeyong is at the back of the dancefloor, pressed against a sticky wall with someone else’s tongue in his mouth, someone’s big, rough hands on his shoulders, someone’s rock hard thigh between his legs.

It’s one of Yuta’s friends, someone trustworthy, someone nice who bought Taeyong a drink and smiled with cute lips – but Taeyong doesn’t remember his name. He can barely remember his face; it feels like he’s had his eyes squeezed shut the entire time, like he’s been trying to force any face out of his mind, because every pair of eyes are bad, they feel wrong looking at him, they aren’t what he wants, but he can’t_ have_ what he wants, so – so he has this instead.

The guy pulls away from Taeyong with a smile, breathing, “You wanna come back to my place?”

And Taeyong is seconds away from saying yes when someone catches his eye through the crowd, someone unfamiliar, someone that looks like a jewel, a shining diamond amongst dirt, an _angel _– and he’s staring at Taeyong.

“I have to go,” he breathes to the guy still holding him. “I’m sorry; I hope you have a good night.”

“No problem,” the man says with an easy smile. “Hope you feel better soon. I’ll get Yuta to keep me updated.”

So Taeyong pushes his way through the heaving bodies, across the dancefloor to where that ethereal man is waiting, smiling just a little, eyes dark and endless in a way that’s all too familiar.

“Taeyong?” the man asks upon his approach. “Taeyong, right? Could I speak to you outside please?”

“Sure,” he breathes, waiting to be led somewhere quiet.

Once outside of the club, there are still people milling, talking, smoking, but the volume is tolerable, and Taeyong can focus all of his attention on the man in front of him, more beautiful than Jaehyun, than Ten, than anyone Taeyong has ever seen. It’s beauty without the sadness, beauty without the malice. Purer than driven snow, and just as dangerous. Who knows what lies beneath.

“You know what I am?” the man asks softly.

“Uh... kind of, I guess.”

“That’s fine. That’s all you need.” He pauses, cocking his head, and his smile widens into a blossoming rose, pretty and pink and sweet. “How is Doyoung?”

Taeyong blinks at that. Doyoung knows this man? “He’s fine. Good. He’s happy.”

“And Jaehyun? I miss him terribly.”

“He’s happy too. I didn’t know... I didn’t know that Doyoung had met anyone else while he’d been gone with Jaehyun.”

“Oh, it was just myself and Ten. We were always a three, and both of us berated Jaehyun for stealing Doyoung away, but in the end we couldn’t stand to see him miserable. Life always throws the hardest decisions to the people least expecting dilemma, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Taeyong parrots, not at all mocking, just drunk and confused. “Who are you?”

“Jungwoo. Has Ten not mentioned me?”

Dread feels like syrup dripping down his throat, coating his chest. “No. No, he hasn’t.”

“That makes sense, he’s terribly possessive. He probably worried you’d go looking for me and leave him alone.”

“What is it you want from me, Jungwoo?”

“I can’t visit often, despite being made for the skies,” Jungwoo says. “It’s exhausting at best, agony at worst, which means I can’t keep an eye on the friends I love. Besides, a new one has come along and he’s terribly angry at the world, so my hands are full anyway. But Ten comes back at times; he seems to especially enjoy the place between worlds, the void in which he can rest.” Jungwoo’s smile drops entirely. “I’ve known him longer than you could comprehend, and oddly enough, I thought I’d seen everything. I guess I was wrong, because yesterday he cried for the first time in all of the lifetimes I’ve known him.”

The silence between them rings out as Taeyong tries to comprehend what Jungwoo has said.

Taking the silence as a cue, Jungwoo speaks again. “Yesterday he cried, and today, when you kissed that stranger, he screamed. He screamed so full of pain and rage that it terrified the others, those of us too deep in ourselves to even consider the lives of humans. It scared them into the darkness, because they’d rather their insidious world than whatever Ten was going to unleash.”

Taeyong blinks away the tears running down his face. He’s not sad, not upset – the tears seem more of a reflex than anything else. “What happened?”

“Nothing. He screamed and then fell silent, and he hasn’t emerged since.” Jungwoo smiles again, and this time it’s pitying. “I don’t suppose he’s ever told you, has he? That people come and go, and he falls for it every time. They see his appearance, become enchanted, beguiled, bewildered – they stay a while, and then they go. They leave or they die or they turn themselves into monsters trying to possess, and they do anything they can to drag him from his home. One of his other incarnations died early, did you know? Supposedly he drove a man mad, and the rest of the village waited until Ten was mourning, then they dragged him from the lake and buried him alive, too far from the water for him to return, and then they took turns watching over the shallow grave, waiting to see if he would be able to dig his way out. They took turns waiting for him to die.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Taeyong whispers, clamping a hand over his mouth. The nausea rises from somewhere deeper than his stomach, the thought of Ten alone and hurting, dragged from his home and buried alone in the dark, weak, waiting for it to end, only to be reborn and start the cycle again.

_You hate how scared you are of love, despite how much you crave it. You’re so terrified of what love does to people, aren’t you darling?_

_You’re so beautiful that it drives them mad, doesn’t it? And that scares you. You fear ruining people, you fear them ruining you –_

Ten had been talking about himself just as much as he’d been talking about Taeyong.

Jungwoo puts a hand on Taeyong’s forehead, and immediately the nausea subsides. “He’s pushing you away, Taeyong, because you’re the only one that’s ever tried this hard to stay. You’ve forced him to remember what it means to be who he is, _what_ he is, and he hates that. He needs you now, and that scares him.”

“Why would he say such horrible things if he needs me?”

Jungwoo strokes a hand through Taeyong’s hair, soothing, kind. “You know what he is, and yet you don’t run away. You should, but you don’t. Ten’s mind wasn’t made for empathy, for sympathy and for thinking of others, but he’s tried to save you all the same. If you don’t run, then he has to drive you away, and spitting hurtful words is something he’s always been adept at.”

“And why have you come to tell me this?” he asks, thinking of Ten at the edge of the moonlit lake, a world of his own that Taeyong had always felt so drawn to, so content.

“When he spoke to you last, something shifted, didn’t it? Something snapped.”

Taeyong nods. The exhaustion, the numbness – he’d put it down to his own emotions, but it had felt so bone deep that maybe there _had_ been something else.

“He released you from an oath, from a bond. You can’t begin to imagine how hard that is to do. You can’t begin to imagine the toll it takes.” Jungwoo blinks, and for a fleeting second his eyes flash gold. “Taeyong, I’m scared for him. He’s weak and furious and suffering, and in our world, that means he’s prey. I can’t protect him. I can’t even move him to this world to rest, because he’s so stubborn that he’d rather fight me than let me help.”

“What... what do I need to do?”

“Nothing you don’t want to,” Jungwoo says. “He’s hurt you. He’s cruel at times, selfish and childish and mean. I understand that none of this is your responsibility, but I told Doyoung the same, that Jaehyun’s loneliness wasn’t his responsibility either. Humans are more stubborn than I expected, considering your weakness.” He smiles faintly. “Out-stubborning Ten will be hard, and I’m not strong enough to do it. You don’t have to stay with him, in fact I think it would be better for both of you if you didn’t, but if you could just wake him up I’d be in your debt.”

Before Taeyong can answer, someone sweeps him into a hug and bounces him. “Taeyong! Why’re you crying?”

It takes Taeyong a second to realise its Yukhei. He pats him on the head and wiggles until he’s back on his feet, but Yukhei just squeezes tighter. “I’m fine, Yukhei – go back inside, okay? I’m fine.”

“Sicheng sent me to see if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, I’m talking to someone about something important,” he replies, looking over Yukhei’s shoulder to Jungwoo’s serenely blank face. “If you go back inside I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, shout if you need me.” Yukhei pulls away and smacks a wet kiss on the centre of Taeyong’s forehead before turning his megawatt smile on Jungwoo. “Look after Taeyong, okay cutie?”

Jungwoo’s cheeks flush a pretty pink as Yukhei leaves as fast as he’d entered their orbit. “I’ll never get used to humans. They’re all so different.”

Taeyong sniffs a little and tries for a smile. “Yukhei’s just weird, consider him an outlier.”

“I consider you an outlier too. Most people wouldn’t cry for the sake of a fae,” Jungwoo says. He puts a hand on Taeyong’s own and squeezes lightly. His skin is warm, soft, and sends a pleasant numbness up Taeyong’s arm. “He’s mean, Taeyong. Mean and bitter and in denial about it all. Don’t let him walk all over you, because I’m not sure he would even notice he was doing it. Look after yourself first.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, because even before Ten, Taeyong had never been any good at looking after himself before others.

-

The taxi that picks him up from the club contains the same driver as last time, and she groans when she sees Taeyong. “God, not again. You wanna go back to that field?”

“Yes please,” he says, climbing in. “I survived last time, didn’t I? I won’t die.”

“You got a tree you really like out there or something? You looking for buried treasure?”

“Something like that,” he says, leaning his head against the window as they pull away from the curb. “I’ll pay double for your trouble.”

She speeds up a little. “Hell kid, for double pay I’d take you to the middle of the ocean.”

-

He isn’t a happy drunk this time, waking through the fields in the dark, tripping over roots and grazing his hands as he catches himself. He isn’t happy or sad or anything other than full of a purpose he doesn’t quite understand, wandering the path he’d created himself, looking for any sign of life at the lake.

The birds sing, curious. The fish too, enquire to Taeyong’s purpose, but he shoos them all away, asking in a low voice for privacy as he toes off his boots and treads in the shallow water.

“Ten?” he calls.

There’s no reply, no supernatural silence, just the sounds of the night around him, the ghost of soft wind, the tickle of the cold water on his feet.

“Ten? Please come and speak to me.”

Nothing.

He throws his phone and his wallet onto the shore and then wades deeper, shuddering as the cold hits his skin and laps at his waist. “Ten?”

But there’s not even the sense of him in the water. It feels dormant and lifeless.

_Look after yourself first._

But he can’t.

He walks until his toes barely touch the ground and takes one last look at the sky. The stars are out, shining prettily, but the moon is hidden somewhere behind a cloud and he feels alone.

“Ten,” he calls. “If you prove Taeil’s vision right I’m going to haunt you.”

He submerges himself in the water, letting the lake swallow him.

-

Beneath the water, his lungs seizing from the cold, he hears the echo of a scream, something inhuman and agonised, and he opens his eyes, sees only the darkness, and panics.

He tries to kick, to swim back up, but the cold is so present that he can barely feel his legs, and the panic worsens, the breath in his chest beginning to ache as he forces himself not to breathe in the water.

He turns, looking for something – anything – but there’s nothing.

No light, no ground, no air – only water.

Something sharp grazes his ankle and he gasps, drawing water into his lungs, and chokes.

Hands touch his face, gripping tightly in the darkness, a lifeline, and then there are lips against his own, cold and soft and familiar, and the water is gone from his lungs. He grips Ten tightly, wrapping around him, and kisses him through the fear and the loneliness and the longing, he puts everything he is into that kiss, and Ten kisses back, the echoes of pain and outrage in the taste of his tongue, the sharp nips of his teeth.

Then Ten is pushing Taeyong back – and for a terrifying second he thinks he really will drown – only for him to land on the bank of the lake, coughing slightly, looking back up at the stars.

“Oh,” he mumbles, uncomprehending, “The moon is out now.”

“What the hell were you _doing?”_ Ten hisses, stumbling out of the lake and dropping on his knees next to Taeyong. “If I hadn’t felt you there, if I hadn’t seen you struggling you would have –“

“I knew you’d find me,” Taeyong says, pressing a hand to Ten’s cheek. This is the first time they’re both wet, and it makes him laugh a little past the knot in his throat. “I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

Ten looks tired. He looks smaller than usual, as if he’s fallen in on himself, the strong spirit that had been holding him up now diminished. “Why the fuck did you come back, Taeyong?”

Taeyong sits up so that he’s level with Ten, searching his face for anything other than sadness, but that’s all that’s visible. “I won’t let you ruin yourself. I won’t let you.”

“How _dare_ you think you have any kind of right to tell me what-“

Taeyong shuts him up with a kiss, pressing forward until Ten falls, back on the sandy grass as Taeyong kisses him and kisses him, the only point of heat between them, the warmth of their mouths making the rest of them even colder. He can’t pull away, can’t make himself listen to Ten’s pain, can’t stop himself from kissing him, from tasting him, from taking what Ten is freely giving.

Ten’s hands slide into Taeyong’s hair as the kiss deepens, as he gives in with a trembling sigh, and Taeyong pulls away just long enough to gasp, “I meant it, I always meant it. I love you. I mean it now and I’ll mean it tomorrow and the day after and I’ll mean it until the day I die.”

Ten laughs, but it sounds like a sob. “I’m no _good,_ Taeyong.”

“You’re better than you know, you’re amazing. You make me happy,” Taeyong says, “You make me less lonely. You make the skies seem brighter. Ten, you make me happy. You’re beautiful, but I don’t care about that. I’m not here to possess you or leave you; I’m just here to be with you. That’s enough.”

“You need to leave,” Ten says, kissing Taeyong again, licking the seam of his mouth, and Taeyong lets him, lets him lead this time. He pulls away again to say, “You need to leave, and you can’t come back.”

“Tomorrow,” Taeyong says deliriously, “Can we talk about it tomorrow? Stay with me tonight Ten, just stay with me for now. Please.”

“Taeyong you _can’t-“_

“You’re not going to tell me what to do,” Taeyong says, pulling back slightly, some of the haze lifting. “You’re not going to push me away or scare me into submission. I’m staying here tonight and either you stay with me or I sleep here alone. That’s your choice.”

“You’ll be cold.”

He rests his face against Ten’s shoulder, breathing in his odd scent. He smells clean and sharp but beneath is something deeper, something Taeyong doesn’t know how to put in words. He smells comforting. “If you stay you can keep me warm.”

Ten shakes with laughter that makes no sound, and after a moment his arms come around Taeyong, holding him close as he breathes into his hair. “You’re as bratty as me. Go to sleep, Taeyong.”

“You’ll be here when I wake up?” he asks, burrowing further.

“I’ll be here.”

-

He wakes up at dawn, and he’s alone.

As hard as it is, he doesn’t cry. It’s his own fault, after all. He should have made Ten swear he’d stay, but he hadn’t thought of that. He hadn’t thought past holding him.

-

The walk home is tiring, a strain on his already exhausted body, but once he stumbles through the front door and smells Doyoung’s lavender he already feels a little better.

That is, until he sees Jaehyun on the couch, waiting for him.

“Uh,” he says, toeing off his boots. “Hey.”

“Please don’t play dumb, that would insult us both.”

Taeyong swallows. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Come and sit down, I’m going to wake Doyoung up. Wait here for us.”

Taeyong nods mutely and takes a seat. He’s surprised when Jaehyun gets up and slides a mug of tea towards him.

“This will warm you. You should know by now that spending the night outside is bad for your body.”

“Thank you,” he says weakly, accepting the mug.

“You won’t thank me in a minute,” Jaehyun replies. “Doyoung will be furious at us both. In advance, I’d like to apologise for whatever happens.”

“I’m sorry too,” Taeyong whispers. “Whatever secrets of mine you’ve been keeping, I’m sorry that they’ve come between the two of you.”

Jaehyun smiles, a fleeting warmth in his solemn face. “We’re friends now, aren’t we? I’ll always help you if I can.”

So Taeyong sits and sips his tea while Jaehyun goes upstairs. It takes a couple of minutes, but once Doyoung raises his voice he keeps it at the same deafening level, shouting obscenities aimed at no one, banging closet doors as he gets dressed, throwing around things loudly enough that each smack hits Taeyong like a bullet.

Doyoung stomps down the stairs, his expression stormy, his jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle in his neck twitches violently as he comes to sit down opposite Taeyong.

Jaehyun takes a seat nearby, almost exasperated by the display if his expression is anything to go by. “You’ll wake the neighbours if you stay at that volume, Doie.”

Doyoung turns to him with flinty eyes. “You’ve revoked any right to call me that, Jaehyun.”

“None of this is his fault,” Taeyong murmurs, holding the mug tighter. “Doyoung, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He knew my best friend, the person I care most about in the world, was deliberately going behind my back to put himself in danger on an almost weekly basis.” Doyoung’s voice is flat. “Tell me, Taeyong, does that sound blameless? If you’d gone out there and one day hadn’t come back, would he be blameless then? Jaehyun, if Taeyong had died, would you feel blameless?”

“Ten would never have hurt him,” Jaehyun says, for the first time releasing some colour into his voice, lifting his chin to meet Doyoung’s spitting words. “He wouldn’t have done anything.”

“He nearly killed _me_.”

“He didn’t know your significance at the time.”

“And Taeyong? What is his significance?”

It hurts, but Taeyong knows it isn’t an insult aimed at him, so he hold back his wince. Doyoung is furious, but his fury is always so calculated, and this time is no different. He’s trying to come to terms in his own mind, trying to understand why Taeyong is safe and alive, _why_ Jaehyun would hide something like this from him. He’s furious and scared, so Taeyong keeps his mouth shut.

“I don’t know what his significance to Ten is,” Jaehyun says quietly. “But I could feel it. Taeyong smells of him. The first few times I was worried – I thought I would have to intervene, I even went to the lake, but Ten was hiding from me. He didn’t want to answer my questions. The time after that I was determined to tell you, but he came back, and it occurred to me that he kept going and kept coming back. If Ten wanted to hurt him, to kill him, he would have done it the very first time. He’s a creature of impulse. I thought Taeyong would tell you when he was ready, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was not my place to intervene. I didn’t want to be the one to hurt either of you. I’m sorry that you’re hurting now, Doyoung, I really am. I hope that you can see where I was coming from, as hard as it must be for you to be hearing all of this.”

“Stop being reasonable,” Doyoung says through gritted teeth, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’ll deal with your stupid responsible reactions later. I love you, but god, shut up.” He turns to Taeyong. “And _you._ I don’t know what to say to you at all, Taeyong. You’ve been lying to me for months. I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong whispers. “I knew it would upset you but I knew you’d be angry if you knew I kept going back to the lake, I know you don’t trust him or even like him I was worried about how isolated he was at first and then I realised who he was, and I realised I liked him. I enjoyed his company and I think I fell a little – “ he stops. Swallows. “I think I fell a little in love with him. I think I _am_ a little in love with him. A lot, maybe. Entirely in love with him, possibly.”

“And you?” Doyoung asks, voice frosty. “You think he gives a shit about you? You think if you called his name he’d come and help you? Or would he leave you to rot like everyone else.”

“He’d help me,” Taeyong says, holding eye contact. “I know he would.”

“Tell me how you know.”

And there it is. Doyoung’s eyes glitter like polished stone, hard as granite because he knows that the previous night Taeyong had done something stupid, and he’s been waiting for Taeyong to admit it. Now, backed into a corner, Taeyong has to tell him the truth.

“Because,” he says, barely above a whisper, “I went into the lake last night searching for him, and I was going to drown. He saved me.”

Doyoung stands without saying anything, puts on his sneakers, and leaves the house. The door shuts quietly behind him, and then Taeyong is alone with Jaehyun. They look at each other, Taeyong filled with some unnamed grief, Jaheyun carefully blank.

“He’ll come back,” Jaehyun says after a moment.

Doyoung’s car starts and he drives away into the dawn.

Jaehyun winces. “Okay, it might be a while before he comes back.”

“It’s been years since he had to walk away from me to calm down,” Taeyong admits. He drains his mug. “I was sixteen the last time.”

“What happened?”

“I had a crush on a guy at school,” Taeyong says. “Doyoung got mad at me because the guy was just like everyone else, apparently. I thought different, so I asked him on a date one day, and he punched me in the face. When Doyoung saw my black eye he got on his bike and rode around the neighbourhood screaming. It’s kind of funny, looking back now. He’s probably screaming in his car as we speak. It’s how he deals with frustration.”

Jaehyun smiles, genuine and warm. “It must have been nice protecting each other as children.”

“It was,” Taeyong says, thinking back. He’s always had Doyoung, and Doyoung has always had him. Even when they argued and fought and sulked, they always had each other.

Wait.

_“You better mean it Yongie, because if someone tries to take your kindness or your happiness I’ll kill them.”_

“Oh god,” he whispers, stumbling out of the seat. “Where are my car keys – _Jaehyun _where are my keys?”

“In the kitchen – where are you going?”

“He’s gonna try and kill Ten,” Taeyong says, running for his keys and then stomping into his boots. “God he’s such a stubborn idiot sometimes, he’s gonna get himself hurt and I – _fuck,_ this is all my fault.”

Jaehyun sighs and stands. “Mind if I come along? Maybe I can calm him a little.”

“Okay,” Taeyong says, trying to breathe past the panic. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

Jaehyun passes him and squeezes his shoulder. “Ten won’t hurt him, Taeyong. He swore an oath to me a long time ago that he wouldn’t ever touch Doyoung with the intent to inflict pain, so don’t worry too much.”

“It’s not Doyoung I’m scared for,” Taeyong says, “Ten is vulnerable. He’s not himself right now. He might let Doyoung hurt him.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun says, climbing into the passenger seat. “Maybe you should speed then.”

-

He parks behind Doyoung’s car and they run across the fields, and it’s Doyoung that comes into focus first, watching their approach without an expression. Taeyong’s breath catches in his throat, but after a moment Ten steps from behind Doyoung, unhurt, and he releases his breath with a sob, slowing his run to a jog until he finally reaches them, Jaehyun seconds behind. “You’re okay, you’re both okay.”

“Fine,” Doyoung says. “We’re just fine.”

Ten doesn’t look at Taeyong, focusing instead on Jaehyun, who he eyes greedily, a man starved of something he’s needed. “Jaehyun,” he says quietly. “You look better than ever. Being human suits you.”

“Thank you,” Jaehyun says. He smiles at Ten. “I’ve missed you.”

Ten nods, but his eyes are hard. “I’ve been busy. Jungwoo too, so forgive us. There’s a new one, you know? A new you, a new incarnation from the earth. The timeline has gone hazy because you left your land too early, so he was born on the verge of adulthood, maybe to make up for lost time.”

Jaehyun’s smile falls. “Another... me. Is he alright?”

“He’s so lost,” Ten says. “Scared and lost and even angrier than we were. He’s scorched the earth, it stands now charred and barren. All of Doyoung’s pretty flowers are dead. He has your memories up until you left your world, so he was born lonely. He was born yearning for a love he can’t have.”

Jaehyun’s eyes darken. “That isn’t-“

“I’m not blaming you,” Ten cuts in. “None of this is your fault; I’m just telling you the facts. Jungwoo is with him most of the time, teaching what he can, trying to curb the fury. He named him, he cares for him.” His smile is humourless. “He burns so brightly that Jungwoo nicknamed him after the sun.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun says. He looks heavenward, then to do Doyoung, then back to Ten. “I wouldn’t take it back, Ten, but I’m sorry all the same.”

“I don’t want or need your apology,” Ten says. He looks back at Doyoung. “We’re in agreement?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?” Jaehyun asks before Taeyong can. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Doyoung swore me an oath in exchange for bringing you to this world,” Ten says, still avoiding Taeyong’s eyes. “Unspecified, of course, because I’m smart enough to keep my options open. Well, I’ve cashed in now, and we’ve agreed the terms. All is well.”

A fieldmouse nearby interrupts Taeyong’s panicked thoughts, whispering something about _secrets,_ something about _heartbreak –_

Jaehyun steps forward, face blank. “What are the terms?”

Ten smiles. “He’s to keep Taeyong away from me, or he dies.”

Everyone seems to burst into motion at once.

Jaehyun lunges for Ten, Taeyong too, but as soon as he nears him Doyoung lets out a splitting scream and crumples in on himself, sending Taeyong stumbling back, terrified, sending Jaehyun, _horrified_, straight to Doyoung’s shaking form.

Ten steps back, retreating towards the lake, eyes finally on Taeyong as Jaehyun holds Doyoung up, and it feels like Taeyong’s drowning all over again.

“You have to stay away now, darling,” Ten says. “Because we both know you’re not selfish enough to risk Doyoung for your own wants. We both know you’d never hurt him.”

Taeyong sobs. “Don’t _do_ this, Ten.”

“Go back to staring at the statue,” Ten says. “A statue won’t hurt you.”

_“You_ won’t-“

“Don’t lie. All I’m made for is hurting people.”

Doyoung looks up, and through gritted teeth spits, “Go then, before you shatter his heart entirely. Don’t come back.”

Ten nods, and then he’s gone.

Taeyong blinks stupidly at the lake for a moment, waiting for Ten to come back into focus, waiting for him to come back.

He doesn’t.

Doyoung looks at Taeyong, eyes pained but steady. “You know this is for the best. You know it.”

Taeyong looks at him blindly. “Did you suggest it?”

“No, he did. He wants you to live your life away from him entirely. A change of heart he’s had recently, apparently. But I won’t lie to you Taeyong, I agreed immediately. If putting myself at risk keeps you safe then I’d do it all over again.”

Jaehyun makes a noise deep in his chest. “We have a lot to talk about.”

But Taeyong doesn’t want to talk to Doyoung. He doesn’t much want to do anything. “I’m going to move out for a while. Please don’t contact me until I feel ready to speak to you.”

“Wh – Taeyong?” Doyoung sounds hurt, but Taeyong turns around and walks back to his car. He doesn’t hesitate there because Doyoung and Jaehyun could walk back at any moment, so he starts his engine and spares a moment to think of where he could go – Johnny maybe, or Yuta – even Yukhei, if necessary – but he doesn’t want that. He wants to go home. He wants to see Ten. Neither is possible without confronting Doyoung, and he wants that even less.

He takes the next turn and heads on the road that takes him towards the town, through the centre and towards the distant suburbs where his parents live.

-

“You’re sure you’re okay, baby?” his mother asks for the third time after dinner. She puts a hand over his own. “I haven’t seen you this glum in years. Has something happened?”

He nods. “I don’t wanna talk about it if that’s okay.”

“Of course,” she says, “You just tell me if and when you feel ready. Until then, you always have your room here. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

His father nods, and one of their cats rubs against Taeyong’s leg, purring loudly. The house is full of love, full of balmy heat that usually brings comfort, but this time Taeyong just feels colder somehow, more alone. Under his parent’s gentle concern, he feels small. Even the animals hesitate to approach him, barring the one cat intent on imbedding its scent into Taeyong’s jeans.

“We have to ask,” his father says quietly, “But is Doyoung alright? No one is hurt or in danger, are they?”

“No daddy,” he says weakly, “Everyone is fine. Just fine.”

-

He stays at his parents’ house for a week, driving to appointments and clinics, but organising all of his drop ins to their house instead of the usual place at his and Doyoung’s home.

The week is long, and he sleeps badly, tossing and turning and picturing, in the early hours, Ten, sat at the edge of the lake, alone. Waiting for Taeyong maybe, or someone else, only to end up alone again.

In this time of science and discovery, would he be dragged from the lake again after falling for the wrong person? Would he be torn apart, dissected, cut open and examined from the inside out? Or would he be punished for someone else’s infatuation again, buried alive away from his home, alone in the dark, crushed by the earth, waiting for it to start again.

It’s all compressed into nightmares that leave him gasping for breath, trembling, waiting instead for dawn to come with his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling of his childhood room, listening to the familiar sounds of the old house.

And then after a week, he decides that enough is enough and he wants to be back in his own bed. Back in his own room, with the curtains Johnny had made for him, the books Taeil had given him to study the last time he’d been ill. He wants the comfort of Doyoung, despite what has happened. He wants his best friend back.

So he kisses his mother on the cheek and hugs his dad and drives home the following Saturday.

The door is unlocked when he reaches the porch, and once he pushes inside he sees that Doyoung has visitors. In fact, it kind of looks like an intervention.

Doyoung is squashed into the arm chair in the corner, scowling, while Jaehyun, Taeil, Johnny, and Jungwoo all stare at him.

“Jungwoo?” Taeyong asks.

Jungwoo turns to him and smiles. “Hello Taeyong. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You’ve lost weight again, don’t lie to him,” Taeil says. He has a tome open on his lap, glasses slipping down his nose as he flicks through his book. “But now that you’re here, any ideas for reversing an oath with a fae?”

_“What?”_

“Ten is suffering,” Jungwoo says, his soft voice grave. “And you are too, aren’t you? I can feel it on you, the weariness, the lack of motivation to keep going. You love him don’t you? Just as much as he loves you.”

“I’m not reversing it,” Doyoung spits. “Even if you find a way to do it, I refuse. Taeyong deserves better – he deserves a real life, with someone who knows how to be kind, someone that knows how to love selflessly.”

“Like you?” Jaehyun asks, smiling without humour. “I stole you away, which is the most selfish thing someone in love could ever do. I stole you away, and yet now we’re in love, and we both live with our freedom, and we’re happy. You’re taking away Taeyong’s freedom to make his own choices.”

“Taeyong’s choices are always _shit.”_

“You were my first choice,” Taeyong says, looking at Doyoung. “You were my first real friend. Were you a bad choice?”

Doyoung’s eyes shine. “Maybe I was.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Johnny tells Doyoung. “And I say this with only love in my heart bro, but you’re being so fucking ridiculous. Other than that one time Ten tried to drown you – and hey, we all make mistakes! – he’s done nothing bad to any of us. He gave you Jaehyun. He brought you the love of your life and all he’s asked for it in return is for you to keep Taeyong safe and I get that you feel like Taeyong would be better with someone human and funky in the same way he is, but the bottom line is that you don’t know Ten. You don’t know if he’s changed since then, or even how he truly was to begin with, but Taeyong clearly knows him. Jaehyun knows him, so does Jungwoo, and the three of them all think he’s someone worth loving. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

Doyoung looks back to Taeyong and says in a tight voice, “If he hurts you and I did nothing to prevent it I would never be able to forgive myself.”

“If you don’t let me make my own choices I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you,” Taeyong replies, as steady as possible despite his aching heart.

Doyoung rubs his face. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck. Fucking fine, fine, whatever, I’ll help. Whatever. Fuck you guys. If I die because of this I’m gonna come back and kill you all.”

“That’s not very cash money of you to say,” Johnny says solemnly. “But I’m glad you’ve changed your mind. We’d help you in this position.”

“In fact, Taeyong did,” Taeil points out. “He got you a deer heart so you could summon Ten to get Jaehyun back, despite how much it made him vomit when the butcher passed it over.”

“The heart was useless, by the way,” Taeyong says faintly. “I read a tome that said he could feel us in the water anyway. The heart thing is a myth.”

“That explains why he laughed at me when I offered it to him,” Doyoung mutters through his hands. “Okay, let’s get this over with. Any ideas for breaking oaths?”

“Ten could reverse it himself, since it’s on his terms,” Jungwoo says, “But you’d have to convince him without Taeyong being present, or the terms still sit, and Doyoung would die.”

“Out of curiosity, how would he die?” Taeil asks, scribbling notes into a leather-bound book.

Jungwoo shrugs. “However Ten felt suited his need. Since the oath is something of a threat, I suppose Doyoung would die horribly. Either something of the heart or mind, whichever would cause more pain in the moment.”

Jaehyun swallows. “This isn’t making me want to help Ten.”

Jungwoo smiles. “I think we have the best chance of convincing him, Jaehyun. We know him best.”

Taeyong sits on the arm of the couch next to Johnny, considering Jungwoo. Jungwoo, who only a week ago had told Taeyong not to hesitate around Ten. Jungwoo, with his pale hair and downy features, his oddly oversized clothes, his sweet aura, willing to hurt himself to ensure he can help a friend.

“Why did you come back, Jungwoo?” Taeyong asks. “You said it hurts to come to this world.”

“Oh it does,” Jungwoo says. “It’s agonising.”

“Then why?”

“Ten’s blocked us all out. He sits alone with the faint memories of his past lives, and it’s torturing him. He thinks of those he’s killed and those who have killed him, and he thinks of you. You’re his strongest memories, Taeyong, the bright points in a dark, depressing life. This isn’t something that’s going to blow over; this is something that will haunt him beyond this lifetime. This is something that won’t ever leave him, as permanent as the marble and water you’ve come to love.”

“I’ll speak to him,” Jaehyun says, standing. “If you can take me, Jungwoo, I’ll come.”

Doyoung stands. “I’ll come too.” At everyone’s bewildered looks, he flushes. “Shut up, I can be helpful.”

“But will you be helpful?” Johnny asks. “Or are you gonna throw a fit and smack everyone?”

“It depends on what the situation calls for,” Doyoung says with as much poise as he can muster. At Taeyong’s look he deflates. “I made this situation worse because of my anger and fear,” he mutters, “so I can at least try and make it better. I’m sorry for hurting you Taeyong.”

“Thank you for apologising,” Taeyong says. “I forgive you. Please get Ten back.” He presses his lips together, and when he speaks again his voice comes out thick. “I miss him. I really love him Doie, I really love him.”

Doyoung sighs. “Okay Yongie,” he says quietly, “Okay. I’ll try.”

-

A waiting game is pretty anticlimactic, since the week before Taeyong had been ready to fight for Ten, and now all he can do is sit in his house and wait around with Taeil and Johnny.

It’s fine.

They sit and read and laugh, and Taeyong tries not to jump every time a bird warns him that a car is approaching from further down the road.

It’s fine.

“You okay?” Johnny asks.

“I’m fine,” Taeyong replies.

“I had a vision, you know,” Taeil says, not looking up from his book. “It wasn’t a pleasant one, considering all I saw was your back while you were getting railed, but surely for you that’s a good sign, right? I mean, it’s better than seeing you drowning.”

“You saw me... having sex?”

“Yeah. I mean, I assume that’s what was happening. It was either that or a really weird prostate exam.”

Johnny groans. “I’m gonna need therapy and it isn’t even the weird creatures causing it, it’s just you two! Go away!”

“You’re in my house,” Taeyong says. He focuses back on Taeil. “Did you see who was fucking me?”

Tail shakes his head. “All I saw was grey hair.”

“No way does Taeyong get a sugar daddy before I do,” Johnny says. “I refuse to believe it.”

“Ten doesn’t have grey hair,” Taeyong says, lost.

“This conversation is enough to turn anyone grey,” Taeil mutters. “If he has Doyoung nagging him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he came back entirely bald.”

“If he comes back at all,” Taeyong mutters, biting at the skin on his thumb.

“Doyoung’s put his mind to helping you, and you know what he’s like. If Ten tries to argue he’ll get nowhere, fae or otherwise. No one can out-argue Doyoung.”

Johnny nods. “He’s a menace.”

“A menace that loves us.”

“Yeah,” Taeyong agrees. He thinks of the child with big eyes and a loud, bossy mouth. He thinks of the adolescent with passion and fury, and he thinks of the adult, calmer but just as righteous. “He loves us.”

-

It isn’t until morning that the three return, exhausted, stumbling through the door one after the other.

Taeyong shakes Taeil awake, who smacks Johnny until his snoring stops, and they all turn to wait.

After Doyoung, Ten pokes his head through the door and smiles kind of uncomfortably. “Uh, hi. Can I speak to Taeyong please?”

Before he can think about it Taeyong launches himself off the foor and into Ten’s arms, throwing them both out of the doorway and falling off of the porch outside, landing on the gravel with a pained groan Taeyong greedily suffocates by kissing Ten, ignoring the very possibly concussion and bruised lungs because all that matters is he can feel Ten beneath his hands, he can block out Doyoung’s groan of disgust, Johnny’s whistle, Jungwoo’s odd noise of curiosity – nothing else matters but Ten, as he is now, strained and uncertain but melting like hot ice under Taeyong’s mouth.

“I love you,” Taeyong gasps, lifting for a second to look into Ten’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving you, I _love_ you.”

Ten smiles shakily. “I don’t really know what love is, Taeyong, but I just sat through eight hours of Doyoung shouting, and I did that for you.”

Johnny laughs from somewhere behind them. “I’d say that counts.”

“Shut up,” Doyoung snaps. “Go back inside, let’s give them some privacy.”

Taeyong kisses Ten again because he can, gentler this time, a brushing of lips, before he sits up and offers Ten a hand. “You wanna walk while we talk?”

“Sure,” Ten says, accepting the hand. “Why don’t we go to the lake?”

-

“If I was to become human, I couldn’t do the same as Jaehyun,” Ten says as they walk. Taeyong barely hears him, delirious with the happiness of getting to hold Ten’s hand, but he pauses at that.

“What do you mean?”

“I brought Jaehyun into this world, and because he’s a creature of the earth, ripping his roots from his land made him weaker, made him mortal. I was born in the water, so that wouldn’t work for me. I don’t know what would.” He presses his lips together, considering for a moment. “I wouldn’t do it like that, even if I could. I don’t want to fill Jaehyun with helpless guilt, but his next incarnation, the one now occupying his land... he’s suffering terribly. He’s annoying, but he’s just a scared kid that doesn’t understand why he was born into a body that is barely his own, full of memories of a love that wasn’t his own. I won’t do that to someone else. If I give up my immortality, I’m making sure I’m the last of my line. No one else needs to carry the memories I have.”

“Do whatever you need to do to make yourself happy,” Taeyong says. “I don’t care what you do Ten, as long as you’re happy.”

“I’ve been so scarred by this world, by the people that live in it,” Ten says, staring out across the fields. “I’ve avoided it as much as I could, bar you. I think I want to travel. I want to meet people and eat weird food and see what I like. I want to travel, and I want to come back to you.”

The thought of losing Ten for an indefinite amount of time is a dagger point against the skin above his heart, but Taeyong nods and breathes through the pain. “If you think travel will make you happy, I think it’s a good idea. It’s not like anyone can mug you or anything.”

Ten laughs slightly at that, but he looks at Taeyong with curiosity and thinly veiled worry. “You won’t mind if I go without you?”

Taeyong tries not to let the thought of Ten being so scared of being possessed upset him. “I’m not here to own you, Ten, just love you. They’re not the same thing. Love isn’t possession, it’s appreciation, respect, and honour. I’ll never take what you don’t freely give.”

“And if I don’t want to be human? What then?”

Taeyong laughs. “Then I guess in a decade or so people will just assume I’m your sugar daddy or something. I’m not going to make your decisions for you.”

They approach the lake, and Ten stops. He turns to Taeyong, eyes dark and oddly vulnerable. “I won’t ask you to wait for me, just in case. I won’t do that.”

“Okay,” Taeyong says, knowing he’s going to wait anyway.

“But still,” Ten says, leaning up to kiss Taeyong gently. He smiles against his lips. “Miss me, darling. Miss me terribly.”

Taeyong smiles. “I swear it.”

Ten laughs like wind chimes, like bells and freedom and love.

-

Going back to life without Ten is harder than Taeyong had assumed it would be, but he deals with it as well as he can.

Jungwoo stays a couple of days, but he says he worries about leaving his world too long and returns after leaving a sweet kiss against Taeyong’s cheek with a promise to return when he’s a little stronger.

It goes back to Taeyong and Doyoung, the terrible two, as Johnny has taken to calling them. They argue every day and make up every evening over dinner.

Jaehyun stays a couple of nights a week, and he usually brings food with him, which is always a pleasant addition.

Taeyong goes out with Yuta and Sicheng some weekends, Yukhei on others, and he flirts. He gets flirted with in return, but he goes home to his own bed, happy to be alone. Happy to have spent the night with his friends, but just as happy to know that one day, sooner or later, he’ll have someone worth waiting for.

Then he wakes one morning to the sound of Doyoung screaming.

He bolts downstairs in his pyjamas, running to the living room where Doyoung is stood staring at the fireplace – at the tulip his grandmother had given Taeyong so many years ago – the tulip that had bloomed into a delicate pink, no longer the colour of blood.

“Is that good?” Taeyong asks faintly. “Bad? I can’t remember.”

There’s a knock on the door, and then Ten is there, barging in like he owns the place, kicking off his sandals and shaking his short, grey hair, spraying water across the wallpaper. “Hey,” he says, grinning at Taeyong. “Did you miss me?”

Taeyong can’t take his eyes away from the hair. “Thank _god,”_ he says with feeling. “I didn’t wanna get fucked by a grandpa.”

Ten frowns slightly. “What?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Taeyong says, thowing himself into Ten’s waiting arms. He kisses Ten soundly on the mouth because he can, smiling all the while. “I missed you. I missed you so much. Are you ready to tell me about your travels? Do you want a mug of tea?”

Ten smiles and kisses him back, giggling like a child while he squeezes Taeyong’s ass. “Water will be fine.”

So he pours Ten some water and kisses him again, and then again, and once Doyoung goes back upstairs, disgusted, he kisses Ten again.

“I love you,” he repeats. “I love you.”

Ten grazes his thumb over Taeyong’s cheek, so gentle that it makes Taeyong’s heart skip like stones across a calm lake. “One day I’ll be able to say it back,” Ten murmurs. “One day soon.”

“Until then I’ll say it for the both of us,” Taeyong whispers, kissing him again.

“Don’t swear it,” Ten says, smiling. “No more oaths. I’d rather surprises from now on.”

-

Taeyong is twenty four when he falls in love.

He's twenty four when he stays in love.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry if I don't reply to everyone's comments but please know I read every single one over and over again as inspiration and a reason to keep writing, I appreciate them all so much and I love u all so much for giving me the time of day:^(<3! And thank you as always to everyone that reads/bookmarks/comments xo


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